Greetings, friends! Project Director Luke here. It’s been just over a month since launch, and I hope you’ve been having a good time with your adventures in the Cursed Lands. While you’ve been bashing baddies, we’ve focused on your feedback, identified the biggest issues, and formulated a game plan. Now I want to give everyone an update about where we are, where we’re going, and what to expect over the coming weeks and months for MythForce. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44010308/0606e0cbe6c32732f8c97b9161ce01efe1a0112f.jpg[/img] Your feedback largely falls into one of three major categories: [list] [*] [b]Bugs[/b], or anything that doesn’t work the way it’s intended to. [*] [b]Gameplay[/b], or anything related to pacing, action fidelity, or general gameplay issues. [*] [b]Content volume[/b], or requests for increased variety in the game overall. [/list] Philosophically, I rank those three types of issues in that order of importance. No amount of content is going to make a game that’s not fun enough to play from moment to moment better, and no amount of solid gameplay is going to be enjoyable if there are too many bugs. With that in mind, our paramount goal is to eliminate all of the bugs that are creating issues with core gameplay. Let’s call that a “core gameplay stability pass.” Within those bugs, most notable are issues that make the multiplayer experience less enjoyable. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44010308/a1c72e707cb6df65acefa81247f60605c05275ff.jpg[/img] With our next patch, the goal is to ensure that—lag due to bad connection to host notwithstanding—your experience as a client is just as smooth as if you were the host or playing solo. What that means practically is that we are focusing on networking, eliminating anything that can cause an input to be lost, a hit not to register, or any inability to interact with something in the world. Also to help with that multiplayer experience, we’re making some changes to our matchmaking. We’re working to prevent situations where you can quickplay into a game with an unplayable ping, as well as the issue of quickplay frequently dropping you into the first episode or an episode far above what you’ve unlocked. Aside from multiplayer, we’re addressing any core gameplay that is glitching and getting into bad states, like losing the ability to block, getting stuck moving at walking speed, or enemy collision pushing you through the floor. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44010308/7cca0a3742baf5b34b5fb27539ce756307bf9757.png[/img] All of the above and more are the priorities in our 1.0.3.0 patch, which is currently in progress. If everything goes according to plan, it will be ready to roll out on PC in the coming weeks, and on consoles (Xbox, Playstation, Switch) sometime afterward, pending a little extra time spent on 8th-generation console performance and certification time. Once we’re confident that the core gameplay is much more stable, the next step is doing a thorough pass on all of our gameplay actions. We’ve made an inventory of every single action you can perform in the dungeon and how it interacts with everything else. We’ve listed everything that doesn’t chain properly, every animation that can’t be canceled as intended, and every action that takes even a few frames too long to execute. If it wasn’t a bug breaking the action but it still needed polish, our plan is to address it in the 1.0.4.0 patch. The same patch will also focus not only on improving the actions already there but also on fixing some other, broader issues of pacing, progression, and the experience of fighting monsters in the dungeon—maximizing the fun in the adventure itself, especially in the early parts of the dungeon where the game ramps up slowest. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44010308/e76edbe7ddf7b17154263baadb8defc80330929b.png[/img] By the end of 1.0.4.0, our hope is that the experience inside the dungeon feels much more polished, after which we’ll turn our attention to the metagame and re-evaluate your progression as a player and with your character through the game. There are many ways that we can improve the game between sessions, and we have some plans, but we’re still in the stages where things can go in a few different directions, so we need to choose the best one. What we do know at this point is that our goal with 1.0.5.0 and beyond is improving your experience of playing the game between sessions—giving you clearer goals and much better rewards for progressing. We want to reduce “grinding” for simple bonuses to stats and focus more on building your character in a way that you enjoy. More to come on that as we solidify our plans. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44010308/987f5a7793c4a1a090624ba761e13087069d6bf2.png[/img] That leaves “Content,” the broad category of more to do and see. The addition of new content will take time. We have some things near completion that can be added in the mid-term, but we’ll be selective, improving the places that most need new content and greater diversity first. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44010308/663b2fffdd5dbc5592f304f6811f96ffbc6fb79a.png[/img] We’re looking at the early game experience, especially in that first episode of Bastion of the Beastlord, and at making changes to ensure that the experience ramps up faster and that you’ve got more to experience sooner. We’ve heard you: fighting regular skeletons for five or six rooms in a row is too monotonous. We’ve also noticed a few bugs affecting how the game is choosing the order of rooms, exacerbating that repetitiveness. We’ll be going into more detail over time as we keep the development going, but I hope this gives you a view into what to expect over the next few releases. We’re excited about what the future holds for MythForce, and we’re grateful that you’re here with us on the journey. Stay tuned for more soon!