Greetings Mortals,
In this new development update we will be mentioning the outcomes of our recent Party Questionnaire, covering some more items being worked on for the next update, along with asking for your feedback once again about a new proposed substantial update to the flagging system and ending with a small Sarducaa teaser image.
Party System Survey Results
In our last development update, we asked for your feedback about various aspects of the new coming Party system, and the results are in!
The vast majority of you expressed that you thought the proposed Party system would be an improvement to the game, and that it will make you more likely to group up and play with strangers, which we were happy to see.
When asked about whether or not you would like to see the names and health bars of your party members in the UI, although still a high majority of you said yes, there was a smaller number of people expressing concerns, which in the text responses primarily related to fears of introducing UI clutter.
As a result and due to the very positive feedback we received for the proposed Party system, we have already begun working on overhauling certain elements of the game’s UI in preparation for this and to ensure the UI is as unobtrusive as possible, which will also reduce how obstructive the UI is for your own pet frames, by making them take up significantly less space.
The new UI changes are still a work in progress and aren’t quite ready to show off yet, however they are already quite promising. With the new changes, having multiple pets as well as a full party should take up less space on screen than the existing multi-pet UI does on live currently.
Additionally, the feedback about how large the maximum Party size should be was quite diverse with no clear majority, however in the end we have decided to start with a maximum of 5 Party members.
Journal Overhaul & Chronicle
Part of the preparation for Sarducaa involves going through, changing, converting and updating a lot of backend systems in order to better support the coming new continent, and as a result some of these necessary changes open the door to improvements we have wanted to do for a long time, but the time hasn’t quite been right for until now.
And so, in addition to the new Party system, as a by-product of the above mentioned backend changes, another item which is being worked on for the next update is an overhaul to the player Journal, the introduction of the Chronicle and the addition of new earnable titles!
Journal Overhaul
The in-game Journal is receiving a rather substantial face-lift, and is now better integrated into the game.
Some of the changes include:
- A completely new visual layout.
- Titles are now viewed and selected in the Journal UI.
- Titles are now categorised into the following groups:
- Adventurer
- Explorer
- Artisan
- Combatant
- Earning Titles within the new Title groups now contributes toward earning “Milestone” Titles, which represent your progress toward earning all of the Titles of each group.
- There are now new Titles for unlocking all Discoveries within a certain group.
- Each Discovery group and Title group now displays a progress bar at the top of the UI showing you how close you are to the next Milestone Title unlock.
- There is now a new Discovery group for Foraging.
- There is now a new Discovery group for Fishing.
- Fishing Discoveries can only be unlocked by catching a Fish yourself.
- There is a new Tab in the Journal for the “Chronicle”, which displays your Account’s history of actions and all tracked stats such as Glory Gained, Bandits Killed, Weapons Crafted, Silver Aegis Earned and many more.
- The Notes section has been updated with a new visual layout as well.
One of the particularly nice elements of this new Journal is that we are finally able to show the full size icon images, and so you will now be able to see and appreciate all the different items you have come to know in increased detail.
Here is a look at the work-in-progress new Journal UI, viewing the Fish Discoveries:
Here is also a look at the new work-in-progress new Title UI, which shows the Milestone Unlock progress bar at the top, and the new Title groups on the left:
We will be able to show the rest of the new UI for the Chronicle page once it is closer to completion.
Overall we are very excited to get this update in your hands and watch everyone begin to fill in their Journal discoveries, especially for the new Fishing unlocks!
Aggressive Flag
Before we dive into this next topic, we want to be clear that the proposed changes outlined below are not coming in the next update, however we are talking about them now in order to get your feedback and opinions early, and allow time for discussions to happen amongst the community.
Naturally if we receive an extremely positive reception to the talked about changes then our schedules could shift to prioritize it, however to be safe you should assume this is not coming any time in the immediate future.
With that disclaimer out of the way, one of the major persisting problems we experience currently is related to the flagging system, and how it cannot accurately account for player intent.
This proposed update aims to alter the flagging system in such a way as to allow for players to take legal pre-emptive action against other players who are displaying hostile intentions by flagging themselves aggressively, which will have the following positive effects:
- Players will be able to self-flag for open PvP whenever they want, without needing to first commit a criminal action to allow other players to attack them legally.
- This essentially enables a similar style of gameplay to what some Red players with high standing do currently, involving standing inside towns and incentivizing other players to attack them to generate content, only it no longer requires being a murderer to participate in.
- It would now be possible to take the initiative and attack a “potentially hostile” player first, without needing to risk letting them hit you before you can legally react.
- It would no longer be possible to commit a criminal action without first making yourself vulnerable, telegraphing the intent of a potentially hostile player.
- This means when groups of players run into each other in the wild, players must first become vulnerable themselves before attacking the other group, which allows the other group to act pre-emptively with much less risk of being reported for murder as is currently the case.
- It would now be possible to have seamless group fights in the Arena, without legal-looting worries, as the current duel system only supports two players.
The Problem
The problem at hand manifests in a few different ways, however one primary example is the behavior of the Criminal Actions toggle.
When a player wants to commit a criminal action and engage an innocent (Blue) player in combat, they must first enable their Criminal Actions buff, however the player does not actually become a criminal until they perform a criminal action, such as hitting an innocent player.
This results in the intent of a player only being known retroactively, after they have hit a player and potentially dealt “engagement-outcome-affecting” damage to them, which places the victim at a severe disadvantage in such interactions.
Another outcome of this issue is that players often turn criminal actions on in order to attack other players who are advancing toward them, when the confidence of being attacked is high. This results in players being reported for murder and losing nation standing, even though they were, in context, acting in pre-emptive self defence to increase their odds of survival. This is one of the most common and persisting issues we deal with today, and one that generates many complaints from players who end up losing their hard earned standing as a result of the current mechanics.
To solve these issues, we must have a way to identify the intent of a player before they commit an action, and allow other players to see this and respond appropriately.
Solution: Aggressive Flag
In order to solve, or at the very least heavily mitigate the previously mentioned issues, we can introduce the concept of “Aggressive Flagging”.
This is the idea that players can now intentionally flag themselves for PvP, allowing anyone around them to attack them legally, and make this a requirement in order for a player to be able to commit a criminal action such as attacking another player, or stealing from an innocent loot bag.
Aggressive Flag Mechanics Description
The Aggressive Flag:
- Replaces the Criminal Actions toggle, and is activated in the same way via a keybind.
- Has a 3 second activation delay window, which exists via a transitionary buff to avoid abuses and to serve as a “debounce” window so players can correct an accidental activation without becoming globally vulnerable.
- The specifics of these timers may change drastically.
- Allows the player to be legally attacked and killed by anyone.
- Allows the player to commit criminal actions while Aggressively Flagged.
- Has a 30 second removal delay window, using the same transitionary buff.
- This means a player can turn on their Aggressive flag very quickly, however turning it off requires waiting a short time.
- If a player is hit during this 30 seconds, their transition buff timer resets, in the same way getting hit as a criminal resets your criminal timer.
- This is to avoid potential abuses and odd behaviors if a player attempts to remove their Aggressive Flag after already engaging with another player.
- Behaves the same way as “Local Grey”, in that you can be attacked and killed, however you can not be legally looted.
- When an Aggressive Flagged player dies, their loot bag is their base flag (Blue, Grey, Red).
- Activating “Aggressive Flag” initiates a transitionary buff with a duration of 3 seconds
- When this buff timer ends, your Aggressive Flag is now on.
- When your Aggressive Flag is on, you become “local grey” to all other players, with a specific new “flag icon” under your nameplate and a changed name color.
- Being Aggressively Flagged allows other players to attack you pre-emptively, as you have flagged yourself for open PvP.
- When you toggle off your Aggressive Flag, you get a transitionary buff again, but for 30 seconds.
- If you are not a criminal (you didn’t commit any crimes while you had it on) you return to your base flag.
- If you are a criminal, you remain one however you can now not commit any new crimes as your Aggressive Flag is now disabled.
The new Aggressive Flag replaces “Local Grey”, as “Local Aggressive”, which applies in situations such as a third party healing an Aggressively Flagged player who you are fighting, and so the the third party player would become “Local Aggressive” to you, as they are assisting your opponent.
Preserving Duel Integrity & Preventing Griefing
Untouched, this would allow anyone to “blue block” people dueling in towns by Aggressive Flagging and jumping in front of people’s attacks, thus allowing them to kill said player in “self defence” legally and without going criminal.
- This is already possible as a red player, or a criminal player, however would be much more common if left unchecked.
- In this new system, you would not be able to legally loot someone who attacked you while you were aggressively flagged, as is the case when a murderer is involved, you must loot them as a criminal action
Our planned solution to avoid this problem is to only permit duelling partners to hit each other, unless they are also Aggressive flagged.
- If you are currently in a duel, you are only able to attack your duel partner, unless you also Aggressive flag yourself in order to be able to attack someone else and commit a crime, or attack another aggressively flagged player, but doing so will naturally make you vulnerable to legal attacks from anyone around you.
- It’s important to keep in mind that if someone Aggressive flags in town, they will be making themselves vulnerable to everyone present.
War Combatant Flag Integration
- The Aggressive flag overrides the War Target Orange flag.
- This means players who have not flagged Aggressive but are at war will appear Orange in town, and hitting them makes you a War Combatant, giving you the debuff and causing guards to attack you.
- If instead someone at war Aggressive flags in town, they are Aggressive for everyone, and hitting them does not give you the War Combatant debuff, so you can fight War Combatants in towns if they flag Aggressive, however if a War Target does not wish to fight while in town, they do not need to.
- War Combatant loot bags are already non-freely-lootable, so they behave the same as an Aggressively flagged player who was killed pre-emptively before they committed a crime.
- Due to the Dueling priority change, War Targets can now be attacked without being Aggressively Flagged, however doing so will still give you the War Combatant debuff.
Generic Criminal Action Outcomes
Replacing the Criminal Actions toggle with the Aggressive Flag toggle would have several effects on actions which currently require you to have Criminal Actions toggled on in order to perform.
This means you would need to become Aggressive flagged and globally vulnerable in order to do things like:
- Steal loot from someone’s bag
- Currently you need Criminal Actions toggled on to even look in the bag, we may change this to only need the Aggressive Flag on to actually take an item, but you would be able to look inside the bag legally.
- Get in the seat of a Siege Machine
- Take ammunition from a siege tent
- Raise a Walker
- Cast an AoE damage-dealing spell
- This would naturally be quite a negative experience for most Elementalists, and so we are exploring several options to mitigate this somewhat odd behavior and requirement. We strongly believe that the benefits of this new Aggressive Flag far outweigh any potential concessions we might need to make here, such as even going as far as potentially removing the requirement to be Aggressively Flagged in order to use AoE spells or Elementalism Projectile spells, and making them only affect appropriate targets.
This would also allow us to potentially do things such as automatically Aggressive flagging players who enter an area with an ongoing Outpost Siege.
At its core, the goal of this proposed update to the flagging system is to make all PvP engagements more intuitive, easier to understand and fairer as player intent is more accurately conveyed which allows all players involved to make better informed decisions, while reducing the prevalence of receiving murder counts in scenarios which do not warrant them.
Naturally this is quite a substantial change to the way flagging works in the game, and so we are eager to hear your feedback and opinions about it!
As mentioned earlier, this change is not currently planned to be in the next update, but rather potentially some time in the future depending on our development schedule and of course your feedback.
If you have any thoughts about this, let us know by clicking the button below!
Sarducaa Sneak Peek
Of course a large part of the team is still hard at work on the new North American hosted continent Sarducaa, and we wanted to share a couple sneak peeks of one of the work in progress towns.
This time we’re taking a look at Pash, perched on the edge of a cliff in Southern Bos Horba, and one of the oldest settlements in Sarducaa.
You will see more of Pash along with the other major towns, Beth Jedda, Belrim and Aur in future sneak peeks.
That is all for this Into the Vault post, however all going well you can expect another development update quite soon regarding some rather exciting news which we aren’t quite ready to reveal just yet.
So keep an eye out for that!
Note
Please keep in mind that as development progresses, any details described above may change or be adjusted where necessary.
See you in Nave,
The Star Vault Team