Greetings, Taernians!
Q&A wasn’t our final word about the Trials of the Lodge. Some time has already passed since the update, it’s a great moment to sit down and talk to you about them: what went well, what could’ve been better, and what we’re currently working on.
It’s worth noting that a DevBlog is not a changelog. It’s simply a place where we can talk to you. We share the reasons behind what we do, what we’re trying to achieve, and what challenges we’re facing. It’s where we put all our thoughts, plans, and considerations. Not necessarily things that are guaranteed to be implemented but rather topics that we have on our radar.
Off-topic aside, we’ve been observing your actions and progress. Now we want to talk to you about all the issues you have voiced. They are very important to us, too. We want the Trials to be fair, to reward your effort, and to give you fun instead of disappointment.
Going Down a Tier
We noticed that some players refrain from advancing to the Trials for their level bracket and others would like to have the option to go down a tier. We would like to increase the value of advancing for you and make you feel that the system rewards playing normally.
We have considered various scenarios and so far it seems that the best option would be to remove automatic advancement. The higher tier of the Trials will of course unlock, but you’ll be able to decide whether you want to enter it. And if someone’s not happy with the current difficulty, they’ll be able to go back to any lower tier. Also, entries will no longer reset when advancing.
And now for the thing you like the best - rewards. In this case, we’re thinking about making the rewards depend on your level or, if you are level 140, on your Might. Each Arena will have its own level or Might breakpoint - going over will mean you will get lower rewards. What if you want to enter with a much stronger character? The rewards will decrease linearly. We also want to introduce separate multipliers for aithars, experience, psychoexperience, and other rewards.
The goal is simple: we want to give the highest rewards to those facing a challenge matching their level. At the same time, we would like you to have the ability to choose - if you want to play on a lower tier for fun or to help a friend, nothing will stop you. Just remember that the rewards will reflect the actual difficulty.
Trial of the Masters - Rewards for Those Who Push Forward
Another topic that has been voiced in your comments, and rightly so, is rewards. Let’s face it: the best parties can spend a lot of time in the Trial of the Masters, get very far, and the number of aithars they obtain is, to put it mildly, not in line with the effort they put in.
What do we want to change? We’re thinking about increasing the number of aithars in the Trial of the Masters from a certain room. The starting point of the boost will be chosen based on data - it’ll be the place reachable only by the best players. In short: the farther you get, the more the system will appreciate you.
We’ll also take a look at more tangible rewards, but we’re not going to make any drastic changes here. We know that the best players expect unique rewards for the hardest challenges. We understand you completely, but to do it right we need to rework the way we reward you across the whole game (and yes, this moment is coming :) ).
Long Stuns in Solo Trials - Nerfed
As for solo Trials, you have voiced concerns about long stuns. Getting stunned or frozen for 4-5 rounds straight is practically a death sentence without any way to interact. That’s not what we wanted, so we’ll shorten the duration of such effects during solo Trials. Limiting it to a maximum of two rounds sounds like a good idea for us - combat will still be challenging but you won’t fail because of one unlucky streak.
Aspect for All Mobs - Full Infusion
We want to use the Infusion mechanic to its fullest because it has a lot of untapped potential. We’re thinking about adding Aspects to all regular mobs. Mobs in instances would inherit the Aspect of the boss and, in the open world, we’ll choose an existing Aspect for each mob.
Thanks to this, we’ll find out if Infusions really work as they should. If they make runs too easy, we’ll be able to react quickly and increase the Might of the randomly generated mobs. It’s worth noting that even though normal mobs will have Aspects, the way mastery points are gained won’t change. They will only be obtainable by killing elites, champions, and bosses.
Buffs vs Debuffs - Let’s Equalize the Chance
We’re working on balancing the effects obtained through the Trial arenas. You’ve given us a lot of feedback about the imbalance between buffs and debuffs. In practice, the system generates harsh penalties too often. We want to fix this - we want buffs to give you a real advantage and debuffs to provide a challenge without ending a run before it even begins.
XP and PXP from Trials - We Might Have Overdone It
There’s no surprise here - you’ve been reporting this yourselves. We’re looking at the xp gained in lower tiers and we are definitely too generous. We’re also aware of the pxp gains at higher tiers - we’ll be making adjustments here, too.
In short: yes, we’ll be nerfing things but cautiously so that the Trials are still a good way to progress and not a “time trap” without any benefits. On the other hand, we’ll probably increase pxp gains at lower tiers.
The End of One-Round Face of Death?
We’re also taking a closer look at one-round Face of Death, because even though the current system removes them in most cases, it doesn’t really work the way we wanted it to. In addition to that, we’ve heard that it’s not really clear.
We want to make things here easier to understand: if a player has at least one of the debuffs required for Face of Death (meaning Blindness, Dementia, or Poison), they can still be affected by Face of Death this round. However, if they start the round “clean”, then Face of Death will be replaced by Energy Jolt that will only affect the player if they are afflicted by all the debuffs required for Face of Death.
We also know that this system may make combat much harder against some opponents during solo Trials for classes other than Druid. That’s why enemies will only be using one Face of Death per round even if normally they would use more.
Enemies - Variety Is the Spice of Life
It’s a technical aspect but its effects can still be felt. In the top tiers, enemy parties get repeated too often, especially where the Might requirements are very high.
What’s the plan? It seems to us that the best option would be to adjust the algorithm that generates the enemy parties to increase the variety between rooms at the same level and perhaps boost weaker mobs slightly so that they appear more frequently. In simple terms: less déjà vu, more adapting your tactics to the situation.
Cleanup of the Rankings
We’re seeing more and more situations where players appear in the rankings of the Trials but not in their dedicated level range. This leads to unnecessary confusion and the feeling that we’re comparing apples and oranges. That’s why our plan is to exclude players who are playing at tiers not dedicated for their level from the rankings. We want the ranking to be clear, fair, and showing who really is the best in the given bracket.
A Couple of Final Words
There are a couple of other, minor things that are also on our radar:
Elemental shields and stamina loss from Frost Aura. We’re taking a closer look at these effects on boosted mobs because, in their current form, they can be extremely overpowered. We don’t want the power of these effects to scale with the boost.
Lodge shop. We’d like to increase its flexibility by giving you the option to pay either with gold or aithars.
Selena and Energy Jolt. We’re also looking at the level of Energy Jolt in the main AI of Selena - its base value is quite high. And the effect? In the Trials, it simply deals too much damage and requires adjustment.
Mob avatars. We’d like to solve the issue of mobs that look identical but in practice are completely different variants (e.g. Drauguls). The easiest way is to make slight changes to their avatars so that you can see at first glance who you’re facing.
Mobs will no longer make you flee. With the current AI, mobs can make you flee, which doesn’t make sense in purple areas and, as you rightly pointed out, shouldn’t be happening. It’s one of the behaviours that was “automatically” transferred but should be fixed in the context of the Trials. We’re removing forced flee from mob tactics in the Trials and leaving combat as it should be - until the end. :)
Party Trials. It’s the little things that matter - we want to give you a way to see the number of entries to party Trials even when you’re not currently in a party.
Descriptions and explanations - classic QoL end things on a high note. We’ll be making adjustments to some descriptions, especially as far as Infusion effects go, to make things clear without unnecessary guesswork.
And to wrap everything up, we’d like to thank you for all your support, dedication, and feedback. We’re happy that you’re so eager to share it. It’s also thanks to you that we can work on the changes or improvements not only to the Trials but also to the whole world of Broken Ranks. Don’t stop giving us constructive feedback and we won’t stop listening to it for sure. :)
See you in the game!
