Greetings, Taernians!
It’s time for the April DevBlog! This time we’re focusing on balance - we want you to know what we’re planning and what options we’re considering. Balancing an MMORPG is always an ongoing and complex process, and Broken Ranks is no exception, so… sit back and enjoy the read!
Planned Balance Changes – What We’re Currently Working on
We’d like to tell you a bit about the changes we are currently analyzing and preparing for upcoming updates. Some of them are already fairly well defined, while others still require testing, fine-tuning of values, or checking how they perform in practice.
So an important note at the start: the directions of changes described below are not final solutions. Rather, they show where we see problems, what we want to improve, and what options we are considering.
Frost Aura
Frost Aura itself is not a problem in most situations. When an enemy using it does not have extremely high stats, the amount of stamina drained is acceptable. The affected player can continue fighting, react, change tactics, or rely on team support.
The problem begins when we look at the strongest enemies with very high stats. Due to scaling, Frost Aura can drain absurd amounts of stamina in top-tier instances or later Trials of the Lodge rooms. In some cases, even characters with 2,000–2,500 stamina can lose it in a single round, significantly limiting gameplay without Druid’s Invigoration.
We want to normalize this. The current plan is to introduce a maximum amount of stamina that Frost Aura can drain in a single round. This limit will most likely depend on the skill level. This will allow us to better tune skill levels for specific enemies and reduce situations where a single effect effectively removes a player from combat.
Rework of Dynamic Events in the Trentis zone
Dynamic events are a great addition to daily leveling and exploration. At higher levels, they are clearly very popular - good examples include the Wendigo, Greater Hawk, and Hvar‘s Wastelands events.
The situation is worse for events aimed at new players, mainly the Potato Beetles and the Observer. At this stage, there are often not enough players to complete them efficiently. This results from several factors: events trigger relatively rarely, players quickly progress through early levels, and gathering a sufficient group at the right time is difficult.
We want to change this. The direction we’re considering is simplifying these events so they can be completed with fewer players, without waiting for a larger group. We also want the rewards to be more satisfying - possibly enough to attract slightly higher-level players than originally intended.
This is not the most difficult change from a design perspective, but it requires time for implementation and testing. We had postponed it due to higher priorities, but data from new servers showed us that it’s worth revisiting before the global mobile launch to improve the early experience for new players.
Greater Hawk and Wendigo – what’s next?
We are fully aware that both events are extremely popular - Greater Hawk has always drawn crowds on every server, and after the merge of the Polish servers Veskara and Vardis, it’s even more noticeable. Wendigo, in turn, gained additional attention with the launch of the Polish mobile server - Kaalor.
We hear your feedback about these events. We want participation to be less frustrating and offer a better chance of achieving a satisfying result. At the same time, we don’t want this highly rewarding content to be easily completed without effort. In the May update, we will introduce several changes aimed at reducing frustration while maintaining the need to invest time to succeed.
First of all, we will extend the duration of the first stage from 10 to 15 minutes. This will give players who were unlucky at the start of the event a better chance to catch enemies later, once others have already completed it. We will also slightly increase mob respawn rates depending on the number of players on the map and replace single-enemy parties with pairs (except on the Plateau - there, pairs will only appear in a specific region, as they could be too difficult for the intended levels).
We also considered introducing aggressive enemy parties - we understand the frustration when you click on a mob but instead get a list because another player is standing in the same spot. However, this solution has a major drawback - players who have already finished the event or didn’t want to participate could have trouble leaving the map. We decided on a middle-ground solution: partial aggression based on player level (the same as regular mobs in the area). This means that if you want to engage groups by moving instead of clicking, it will be enough to have less than full health. A fully rested character, on the other hand, will have no issues moving around the area.
Rework of Face of Death
Let the one who has never cursed under their breath after being hit by a full Face of Death combo in a single round - and watching the fight end very unpleasantly - cast the first stone.
Face of Death is one of the most iconic Voodoo abilities. It has a very powerful, unique effect, which is why we approach it carefully. We don’t want to strip it of its identity or turn it into just another standard damage skill. At the same time, we see that in certain situations its effect is too strong from a balance perspective.
The direction we’re considering is limiting the maximum amount of HP that Face of Death can remove at once - whether in a single round or per effect trigger. We want to preserve the instant-death effect where it is exciting and visually impactful without breaking balance, especially at lower levels. However, in situations where the skill bypasses intended combat mechanics or becomes the dominant strategy for bosses, it may require limitations.
We want Voodoo to retain strong, distinctive tools, but we don’t want a situation where the Face of Death combo is the only viable way to complete an instance a party is simply too weak for.
Low Damage at Low Levels When the Skill Formula Does Not Include a Weapon Scaling
Ultimately, we plan to unify the way damage is calculated between physical and magical classes. However, this is a larger topic that requires careful handling, as it affects the core foundations of the game.
For now, we are considering a transitional solution aimed at new players who do not yet have access to weapon-based class attacks. At early stages, the difference is very noticeable between professions whose skills include weapon scaling and those that do not. Weapons act as a significant damage boost, making some characters perform much better than others from the start.
We are analyzing several options. One of them is introducing minimum damage thresholds that a class should deal at a given level. The details still need refinement, but the goal is simple: the first hours of gameplay should be enjoyable. We don’t want new players to feel that their character is clearly underperforming, especially if they don’t yet have other strengths to compensate.
Experience Gains – Shadow and Darkness Instances
With the launch of Kaalor, we decided to shake up the existing meta for leveling in Shadow tier instances (commonly known as T1). We wanted to encourage players to explore other locations, rather than focusing only on those long considered the easiest and fastest “highway” to experience - particularly the Puppet Master.
And we can say that this direction worked at least satisfactorily. Activity across low-level instances has shifted. The data shows that players have been more willing to visit places like the Elemental Specters, the Toad, and especially Geomorph. The Puppet Master saw the biggest drop in popularity.
We plan to introduce similar changes for Darkness instances (commonly T2), so that both experience and psychoexperience progression are clearer, and different instances provide appropriate levels of satisfaction. We may also return to make final adjustments to Shadow instances, as we still see some locations that are too rewarding compared to others.
Elemental Specters
Since we’ve mentioned the Elemental Specters, it’s worth taking a closer look at them.
Players have reported issues with resistance balance in this instance. In practice, some classes performed significantly worse than others, particularly regarding fire resistance. Another issue was the level of Fire Shield used by the Fire Specter, which resulted in melee characters having excessively high mortality rates.
We would like to improve both of these elements.
Changes to Pet Equipment Ranks
We initially planned to leave the topic of pets and everything related to them for the larger, promised overhaul. However, there is one thing we would like to address earlier: the ranks of pet equipment dropped from bosses.
When we changed equipment ranks for players, we left pet rares unchanged. At the time, we didn’t yet know how they would fit into the broader overhaul. However, we’ve since concluded that there’s no real reason for rare pet equipment from a single boss to have different tiers, especially since it directly affects their value and attractiveness.
Therefore, we plan to standardize this aspect. The details may still change, but the direction is simple: such equipment should be more consistent and predictable in value.
Trials of the Lodge
Trials of the Lodge have firmly established themselves in many players’ weekly routines. However, we are still closely monitoring this mode, collecting your feedback, and identifying which elements need adjustment. At this point, there are several aspects we would like to improve.
First, some mobs in Trials of the Initiates and Trials of the Guardians can be too deadly relative to their power level. Might is an approximate parameter that helps assess what a player will face, but it does not perfectly reflect actual difficulty. From our observations, mobs that have been systemically enhanced (marked with a blue icon next to their avatar) can be particularly problematic. Their stats are scaled algorithmically, and in some cases, this can produce stronger effects than intended.
Second, we are reviewing one of the effects from the Arena marked with a star. Specifically, the effect where Lightning strikes players and deals damage. In lower-level Trials, it stands out as too strong compared to other effects. We want to rebalance it so it remains impactful but does not dominate the entire fight.
Third, we are analyzing the issue of negative regeneration after receiving Debilitation of Special Psychoeffects. We observed this during early testing, but we were unsure how strongly it would impact gameplay. In party Trials it’s not always a major problem, but in solo Trials - especially at lower levels - negative regeneration can quickly drain mana or stamina. When a player has no effective way to recover resources, the fight becomes more frustrating than challenging. We currently plan to adjust this debuff so that regeneration never drops below its base value. In other words, it can weaken regeneration but should not actively drain resources each round.
Trials of the Lodge will of course continue to be monitored. We also know these are not the only issues you report. However, we must prioritize and select changes that we can realistically implement and test properly.
Defensive Skills
Finally, a topic you often ask about - the promised improvements to defensive skills. We haven’t forgotten about it, but we want to be clear: we won’t be able to deliver a full overhaul of these skills at a level that would satisfy both us and you in the next update.
At the start of the process, we gathered feedback on specific skills from a large group of experienced players, even before the introduction of the Trials of the Lodge. Later, we compared it with the feedback we received after the mode was implemented. We also analyzed statistical data, including skill distributions across classes.
This allowed us to identify a group of skills where small numerical adjustments may be enough to bring them closer to our intended design. These include Survival Instinct, Evasion, and Shadow Shield.
However, we also have a second group of defensive skills that require much more significant changes to become truly useful and appealing to players. Examples include Natural Resistance and Fire Shield.
We don’t want the defensive overhaul to boil down to simply adding “+10% physical armor” to Natural Resistance or making small tweaks to Survival Instinct. We want these changes to be more interesting and give players real reasons to use these skills. This may involve completely redesigning their effects or adding new mechanics upon activation.
Such work requires more time than simply changing a few numbers in formulas. Due to the team’s heavy workload with the mobile version and new instance mechanics, we weren’t able to prepare these changes at a satisfactory quality level. The topic remains important to us, and we want to return to it at the next opportunity for larger balance changes.
That’s all for this month! The direction is clear, and now we need time to implement these changes properly. Most of them won’t make it into the next update, although minor adjustments to the Greater Hawk and Wendigo events will be included in the May 19th update. Thanks for your feedback and ongoing discussions. See you next time!
