Hello everyone!

This week, we would like to share some information on the Game Design objectives and changes planned for the next Content Patch, as well as the global idea we have for the release. We feel it’s important to share these goals with you and how we feel about some of the features, so you can have a better understanding of our vision for the game.

So, we’ve gathered a few points in the form of questions that were addressed to the Design team based on your feedback, and here are their answers:

Is the Design team satisfied by the feedback and results from the last Content Patch in terms of encounters, balancing and build diversity?

We know that there is still work to do, but we’re currently satisfied with the base of what we have implemented so far and we’re now focused on improving the experience.
We’ve also worked on a lot of bugs preventing the balancing to work as intended. We have now fixed them, so things will absolutely run smoother with Wrath of Sarisel.

There are plans to improve the gearing system. With the next patch we’ll be adding local affixes, effects that apply to the item they’re currently on, for instance, a 5% Health bonus would be applied to the item Health bonus, not roughly on the player’s health. This will add more diversity to items in the long run and it was something that we planned to do for a long time.

We also have intentions to add implicit values to armors and weapons, and we hope to implement them for the next Content Patch as well, to give a bit more identity to the various gears available.

After Wrath of Sarisel, we're planning to work on more ways to override the skill limitation system, allowing new types of builds and gameplay. New affixes will appear, allowing you to use other spells while using melee weapons. Other affixes will bring more variety and a bit of “craziness” in itemization, we'll tell you more about this in a future announcement.

Finally, staves are being reworked too, to bring back some highly appreciated feeling from the Alpha.

What are the current guidelines regarding the balancing of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem?

These are our current goals in terms of balancing:

• Avoid sharp peaks of difficulty and make the progression more linear.
• Make sure that the straight-forward archetypes are equally interesting.
• Make sure that hybrid builds are viable. Although we know that we won’t be able to cover everything, we have to study all the possible builds and make them usable.
• Create balancing that avoids off-the-charts numbers in terms of damage and health points.

Will there be changes regarding the scaling of attacks and spells?

We’re satisfied with the difference brought to attacks and spells on the scaling level. It allows to have different balancing levers, and scaling spells on weapons would make it more difficult to balance hybrid profiles.
So, this system will most likely stay the way it is for the moment.

However, skills efficiency will be improved since we can now set values for each level of skill, which we hope to implement completely with the next content patch.

What are the changes brought to the ailment system with the next patch?

We’ll be implementing something that we planned and didn’t have the time to implement yet: reset the ailment timer when the ailment is reapplied. It will make attack speed much less mandatory when you play such a build, and it will make it easier for players to build up ailment stacks on creatures, which allows for more variety in character builds.

Where are we now on the difficulty modes?

We have planned at least 2 levels of difficulty for the release. One would be a “story mode” where you can make the story without too much challenging content, and one would be a normal mode based on our vision of what we want in terms of difficulty in Wolcen.

We’re considering a higher difficulty mode as well, but we don’t want it to be just based on more health points and more damage coming from monsters. We’re currently working on a system that allows variations on the intensity of the encounters for a customizable experience.

Hardcore mode is also planned but it will not be available until we’re satisfied with the balancing and the game fluidity of the base game.

What is the difference between a Unique item and a Legendary item?

Legendary items are meant to be very powerful rares. They offer a higher amount of affixes and can be extremely valuable when you find one with the good affixes, the good tier, and the good numbers.
If you meet all these conditions, you can have the best item for your build.

Unique items are meant to help players during the leveling and to provide unique affixes that can’t be found on other items of the same type, or unique effects that can open new ways to play various builds.
We prefer aiming for many unique effects and affixes in the long term so these items bring extra value to some builds or even allow for very specific builds.

Are you planning any changes or improvements on the various protection mechanisms (Force Shield, Health, All resistance, Dodge, Life leech)?

There should be no redefinition of these defenses, but we are planning changes in the way they are scaled and in the way they interact with various stats through unique items and through the Gate of Fates. There are ongoing discussions about this; for the moment the only thing we are sure of is that we’re working on ways to make them equally viable and not let “All resistance” mandatory for any and all protection choices.

We’re also working on more visual feedback for the Force Shield since it’s currently difficult to track its status.

Are there changes planned for the attribute system?

We’re not entirely satisfied with this system in its current state, but we will improve it through various iterations. The reset timer added to the ailments will bring more value to Wisdom both in offense and defense since enemies will also benefit from this change and apply more stacks of ailments as well. The bonuses brought by Wisdom will then be more interesting.

When will crafting be available?

There are a lot of discussions about crafting at the office. The only thing that we can share now is that it will be available at the release to offer complementary options regarding itemization, and we will tell you more on that subject in a future announcement.

Are you planning any changes on the camera placement?

Considering Wolcen’s creatures have complex attack patterns, it’s important that players have enough visibility to anticipate their moves. Presently, we feel it's not enough and we would like to make some more testing around this to improve the player's vision, especially at the bottom of the screen.

How could you restore some “Open World” feeling in Wolcen?

We have two types of levels right now in Wolcen: fixed levels mostly used for the story, and random levels used for everything else. It’s presently very difficult technically to make events in random environments, but we’re working on making it happen so players can explore random environments with optional areas and secondary quests at the release.

What about waypoints?

We want to increase the number of waypoints and saving spots, especially near strategic events/encounters.

We hope that these answers have brought you some interesting elements on our vision for Wolcen’s gameplay, and how we would like the game to be in the future.

Thank you for your support!