Hey Slayers,
It’s been too long since we checked in, so let’s get right into it.
So… About that New Season?
First, let’s talk about the elephant in the room - when is Dauntless: Awakening coming? The short answer is: by the end of the year.
The longer answer is we’ve fallen short on managing expectations, including around release dates. Case in point, it’s obviously already a little bit too Novembery to call anything a “summer” update anymore. Having community-driven development like ours means sharing ideas, concepts, and thoughts early and openly, to gather feedback and see what you think. As a result, plans are often changing, which means we need to be communicating with you more, not less, and with more clarity about what’s an idea, what’s a plan, and what’s a commitment.
PC Closed Beta
Recently, we got a huge and invaluable bulk of feedback from a PC Closed Beta of the new Dauntless: Awakening season. We can’t thank everyone who played and gave feedback enough for devoting their time to improving Dauntless for everyone.
We also want to thank everyone who signed up - and explain why not everyone ended up getting Beta access.
Originally, we thought we would do multiple phases of the Beta, inviting new players in continually. We decided not to for two reasons:
- We got loads of feedback that showed enough consensus that the next steps were clear
- Some of the improvements we wanted to make with that feedback were notable enough that we needed to focus on implementing them for the new season, instead of doing minor patches to the Beta and continuing to get the same feedback
Here are a few examples of the kinds of changes coming out of the Beta:
Armour Crafting
While the crafting itself was well-received, the Beta exposed a few crucial areas for improvement:
- The existing crafting screen wasn’t cutting it for helping Slayers pre-plan their builds, so our rockstar UI team rebuilt the crafting screen to showcase upcoming perks
- Armour was too resource-intensive to upgrade. We want Slayers to be able to try out different builds and experiment with combinations, which is hard to do when you feel a sunk cost into each armour piece
Cells
In the update, Armour is now key to a build, using Cells as a way to lock in Perks, rather than being the main source of them.
Player feedback was skeptical of consumable Cells that lock into armour, a sentiment made all the worse by a bug that would burn your Cells when you switch armour (definitely not intended).
The Armour crafting update above helps with part of the issue, allowing you to strategize your Cells around your armour’s Perks. But also, we’ve changed up Cell distribution, making certain Cores available on specific islands, allowing you to hunt down specific Cells more easily to properly optimize and experiment with builds.
Bugs
While the Beta was never intended to be bug-free, we want to make sure you know that the major issues reported in the Beta have already been fixed, like
- Weapon talents not working on all game modes
- The aforementioned Cell-consumption when changing armour
- XP not being granted during Escalations
Speaking of bugs, an extra dose of gratitude goes out to the experienced Beta players who, in addition to our kick-ass QA team, found and reported edge case bugs, to help get Dauntless as polished as possible leading up to launch.
The PC Closed Beta did exactly what we hoped - testing out new features and getting valuable, actionable feedback, and the new season will be all the better for it, thanks to you.
Pre-season Update
We’ve still got time between now and when Dauntless: Awakening drops, so what’s happening between now and then?
Events
- Lady Luck’s Pirate Stash (November 15-17)
- Gregario’s Treasure Hunt (November 29-December 1)
- Ramsgiving (date TBD)
- We won’t be running a full Ramsgiving event this year, but themed cosmetics will be available in the store for Platinum
- Seasonal events are very much in our plans for the future (we’re already talking about Frostfall!), but Ramsgiving has always been a tough one to get feeling right, being sandwiched between Dark Harvest and Frostfall - not to mention overlapping with development on our traditional big end-of-year update
- We can’t rule out Ramsgiving returning in the future, but for now, it’s not in our plans to bring back again after this year, so grab up the event items while you can!
Store Changes
We sent Inbox messages about these next items, but just in case you haven’t seen them yet:
- 30-Day Slayers Club and the Elite Slayer Kit (which contained the 30-Day Slayers Club) have been removed from the Store
- XP boosts will still be available in the new season, but not through the Slayers Club, so we don’t want anyone to buy something they can’t use
- The 3-Day and 7-Day Slayers Clubs will be removed as we get closer to the new season for the same reason
- While we’re not ready to commit to any dates yet, we can’t stop you from wildly speculating based on this information
- Regionalized Value of Platinum - Until very recently, we had two layers of regionalization (ie. foreign exchange rates) in Dauntless - when purchasing Platinum for real money, and when spending Platinum in the Store. We’re simplifying that process moving forward, and only regionalizing the real money costs for Platinum. We understand that purchasing power is very different in different regions, and are committed to keeping a better eye on exchange rates moving forward, while also keeping the value of Platinum the same for every player
While we’re talking about money and Dauntless - we have seen conversation and speculation around blockchain technology, and we want to be clear that there are no plans to include blockchain or NFTs in Dauntless.
What’s Next?
A few things.
- Being full steam ahead on development work, like we’ve already detailed above.
- Tons of marketing work, making sure this new season and new phase of Dauntless reaches everyone who has been or wants to be a Slayer. The next step of which is another Dauntless: Awakening blog next week, where we’re aiming to announce and clarify all the content of the upcoming season
- Rampant speculation and hype, especially as you figure out the hidden details in this blog.
Until then,
Clear Skies, Slayers!
