The Open Beta is now live 7 days(!) and thanks to you all we were able to collect a lot of feedback.
We decided it's a good time to make a News Post! As always: Nothing is set in stone and feedback helps us to adjust things!
Today we'd like to talk to you about:
Leveling and how we will adjust it
Balancing, why some gear has "weird" effects and why Pets are so expensive
Dungeons and their current state
Open Beta exclusive changes
Donate Shop
Everyone has to level up, it's the most shared activity between all players. So our Quest is clear: We need to make it a good experience and not let you feel like it's a burden.
From all your feedback and internal tests we found out that the leveling up to 60 is feeling pretty good, but afterwards it slows down a lot and Amplification Scrolls and Exp Server Events feel like a mandatory to progress.
Of course we don't want you to need any extra Exp to level up, they rather should be a nice bonus that you can use from time to time.
For that we will both adjust the whole Experience Curve, so you won't suddenly need twice the amount as the level before and also adjust the experience you gain from Monsters to make it all fit.
The whole leveling will still be in the low-mid area, but it will hopefully feel much better.
Balancing is a more long-lasting task. Gear changes, meta changes, there are a lot of ways how the Balancing can change.
Some players might directly invest a lot of Penya into their gear to do a certain Dungeon to have it easier, while others struggle a lot.
We applied an experimental Patch that changed all the non-Dungeon green gear from level 15 to 105, that includes both Weapons and Set Parts.
The goal with those was to see how those new stats (Like the Yoyo & Bow Damage that the Acrobat classes got) impact the Damage output in normal scenarios, how the early set changes impact the leveling and also to see how players react to them at all.
The results for that are completely different, but overall they're pretty much "Okay". The biggest critic we got was the negative attack speed on the blades Axes, but those are not really noticable with the buffs of an average Ringmaster.
We will still revisit all the Sets and change the Balancing accordingly.
Another part of the Balancing is of course the Penya and the drop rates.
That I want to keep a bit short: We are listening to you, we experience them too and we will adjust them over the course of the Open Beta.
The only other thing I'd like to mention specifically are the Awake prices and the Pet Mistake.
The Awakes cost 500.000 Penya for each try, we got feedback for both saying it's perfect and it's too high. Both statements are valid and it really depends on each player. Okay-ish Awakes can be gained with a little bit of money already, while the better ones need a lot more tries which should be okay in the endgame.
The pets on the other hand are much more pricy. 7.000.000 Penya for a 1 Level Pet Mistake, 10.000.000 Penya for 2 Level. Currently it's supposed to be some sort of endgame penya sink, there are other ways to spend penya more efficiently, like upgrading your equipment, accessory or getting awakes.
With the current experimental Balance changes the Dungeons might be a bit harder, for that we will have a Patch applied with some Beta-Adjustments to make some of them deal a bit less damage. This change can be seen once the corresponding Patchnotes are up.
The whole Dungeon Balancing will be done together with the gear Balancing, more information on that will follow then.
For the duration of the Open Beta we will also change all Dungeons to 10 Entries each day for testing purposes. This won't be the case for the Launch.
There are also a few Dungeons with Boss Mechanics, those are currently only dealing one damage. Boss Mechanics will most likely not be available on Launch and only added to special dungeons. This can change at any time though.
Some of our changes we do in Patches are only for the Open Beta, this includes things like the Ringmaster and Seraph Buffs on Buff Pangs, the "Special"-Section on the Premium Shop in Flaris or others. From now on we'll try to mark those inside the Patchnotes to make it more clear.
For the Open Beta we decided to add specific Items to the Donate Shop which will only be there for the Beta. Those items don't require real money and the Staff Team will provide free Donate Points (currently 1000) to everyone. The Donate Points for that are handed out by hand and manually on Maintenances.
Those Donate Points won't carry over to the Launch, so feel free to spend them!
Once the Server is Launched we won't have any Pay to Win items in the Donate Shop. This means: No Power Ups, No Dungeon Access Scrolls, No better Awake Scrolls or anything as that. The only item that will give some sort of Boost will be the Elite Membership, more information on that can be seen on our Discord (Direct Link to the Post).
Beside the Elite Membership all other items will only be for cosmetic use.
Thanks for reading and sticking to us! Your support means the world to us!
Always feel free to suggest changes, nothing is set in stone and only with feedback we can become a server that you like to play.
~ Your Madrigal Heroes Team