Ironmace Dev Q&A Sep 18th
Table of Contents
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Start of stream notes
Season 6 was ok. 6.5 was pretty rough. 6.9 was still pretty rough for the players. That is just the reality of it. At least that's our assessment from Ironmace.
In terms of the player count going down we knew that these would be dramatic and controversial changes we were making. We sort of predicted that it would be like this but we needed to go through that so we could figure out the game direction and get to the actual meat of everything. We didn't have a magic ball so it was just a heavy cost and we had to go through that process. It sucked that we had to go through that and the major impact fell on the community but it didn't really affect the way decision making would be handled. We anticipated it and in fact it sort of had the reverse effect on decision making because we actually thought it would be worse than it turned out to be. We are actually taking the same amount of feedback as before all the changes. This last season didn't really change how we feel or operate, it's mostly the same.
Q: Since so many players ended up leaving and it sounds like you guys know how the game will be structured going forward; how will you bring back all the players that left?
A: SDF thinks it will be a difficult task to get people to come back but we don't have a specific plan to get those people back. So the main plan is as simple as doing a good job. Get the trust back that was shattered. The only way to do that is to just keep going forward step by step. There's no magic wand that we can wave that will bring everyone back. We feel like we figured out a core component of the game that was fuzzy so we will slowly build that. It's not like Season 6 had any sex marketing we could do since we had this mental roadblock in front of us. We were kind of stagnant.
Q: Do you feel like you have a firm grasp on what made everyone leave though?
A: We gave the playerbase a bunch of stuff and then we started taking it away. To us we were trying to figure out the difference between signal and noise. It was pretty confusing and we didn't want to take anything as an assumption. Even though some things were a signal we wanted to take it out of the equation to check it. That for sure was going to make a lot of people angry. They were core and essential and some of the main reasons people came to the game. Then we were like, oh sorry.
Q: So you had things where you would give 5 things and then just take 5 things away. Like when you stripped all the stats off of armor. And then you ended up just stripping all the stats from armor AGAIN.
Most players want you to build the game you want to make but we want a roadmap that you are going to stick to. People might have bought the game to be solos and then you took that away so that kind of stuff makes people nervous, rightfully so.
A: I think people refusing to play the game is their way of showing us that. And it's their right. But for us the complexities of all the systems that we put in with some foresight didn't actually work out when it was running on the machine. All these little side effects that have a big impact on the main focus of the game. We really want to get down to the roots of what works. We are dense and thick headed but we needed to check this stuff. We'll be the first to admit that everyone was right.
Q: As an early access game I think people bought into the game thinking it was already fleshed out with its core concepts but it turned out things were still being stripped away.
A: The expectations for early access titles has largely evolved. We talked with all of our Wardens and making this kind of game with all these complexities is a very difficult endeavor. Sometimes we luck out and the systems we make seem perfect but then down the line it doesn't feel lucky because it has a big impact on all the other systems. We were a bit too nonchalant with thinking it was early access and we could just change everything we wanted to with our game. For us in order to make it and get it to the next level we need a deep understanding of what works and what doesn't work. It's a very complex game.
Q: Do you guys feel happy with the current balance of the game?
A: SDF is very happy with the balance and SDF has his own balance team that is working hard. There was a lot of reworking and rebalancing of the perks especially with the next wipe
Q: Are you talking only in terms of trios or also solos and all team sizes?
A: The balance right now is not perfect because there's so many things we still have to tune. But we feel confident for where we are at because we have a spine and backbone of where we want to go in the future with balance. There's little spikes everywhere still that we have to contain but the core in the past was shaky. It was a lot of neverending revolving door of changing numbers in the past. Now we feel stable going forward.
Q: In that same vein, SDF recently commented that there'd be over 50 adjustments being made to skills, perks and spells. Are these targeted at changing the existing batch of those or will there be a lot of new things added to the current 10 classes.
A: It's going to be multi-phased. In the past balancing was done mostly by SDF but now we have another person working on the main balance now. The big difference was the huge load was on just one person. And SDF had a limit of how much he could do. Now he has multiple people that can assist him on the side and in terms of speed it's much better. We are going to start off with the underused perks and the goal would be to add new stuff piece by piece.
Q: I'm running a poll to see if the 200% headshot multiplier is too high.
A: SDF agrees it's too high right now but he wants to test some more stuff. We'd like to make better and more creative use of headshot reduction items and stuff like that. Don't expect a big change at the start of the wipe. It was one of our goals to reduce the gear brackets and the amount of matchmaking pools we had to support. In turn we had to over rely on the current headshot multiplier to help with those brackets and the current population size.
As we get a bit more freedom there we can dial in on the headshot multiplier. The limited amount of gear brackets we are supporting are limiting the bigger impact of where those dials are turned. It's not perfect but this is an acceptable range for us right now in this reality.
Q: Going into Season 7 do you have a brief list of new things coming? Outside of Water Map.
A: There's a secret thing that's a new experimental feature. It might destroy the dungeon experience. It's going to be an all or nah i dont know. It's not fair. It's not just the water map, it's a teaser for something we'd like to explore going forward. SDF has talked about it in the past multiple times.
The big thing that SDF wants to announce is that the Gathering Hall is delayed. Maybe later on in the season. It's just not ready. Unfortunate but we're sorry.
Q: So the social space is officially delayed.
Q: Yes. The goal is still to do it within the season. There's some real life logistical reasons this was delayed. So much of it is built up but it's just not fully ready for prime time on the technical side. We think we could have the test version ready, like pretty soon. But in Korea we have the biggest vacation coming up so people will get to recover and then come back, polish it up, and push it out.
Q: For the water map that's started, will that map be randomized or a static lay out?
A: It will be a selectable map for normals. HR uses a random pool of dungeons. We have that map weighted at 0. The HR maps have a circle mechanic. The circle mechanic on the water map is still being tuned. It's just an early version; it will be only selectable as a normal map and not in HR at all.
Q: You could just get rid of the circle mechanic?
A: No. It's always still under consideration. Some of the nuances of our interactions are being missed out on so there's a bit of back and forth between SDF & Terence. Yeah. SDF loves the circle.
Q: Since we saw the whale floating in the ocean. Can that whale be named Partychip and can we kill it.
A: We have no canon name for the whale yet. It's unkillable though. There's some other neutral mobs that will be killable and some of them might drop stuff. Fishing and Cooking aren't in the game. Yet.
We torched everyone's good will. We are working on new systems like the water mechanic. It was super challenging and we underestimated how hard it would be. Subnautica and Sea of Thieves made it look easy. We kind of thought 'do we really need to do that' but now that it's more fleshed out we are happy with it. Underwater swimming is hard.
Q: Going forward is the plan still for the social space, when it's developed, to have a monthly cost for the users. To rent them like a server.
A: The server costs are pretty substantial. We have certain tools to try and control that. If we give you all the gathering hall we just gave all the tools to the players. We need to find something sustainable business wise. That's the reality of renting out servers for us.
Q: The community will definitely give push back on that. Will there be any added benefit to it? Do we get custom games or lobbies for friends or something? Or is it just a social hub like vr chat for people to stare at each other.
A: I don't want to put my foot in my mouth. We haven't done that much on it yet as far as development. We would like to be able to offer stuff like that in the future. But we have to start somewhere and in the beginning yeah you are just staring....like the onus is on us and we need to find that kind of value. It gives us a challenge to build it up and people will decide with their wallets.
Q: Will there be arena rewards this season? Or like will it be in before the end of season 7?
A: It's not made yet. No way it will be done. Don't expect it realistically, there's a lot to do. One of the big rewards we want to tie in is titles. And we don't have the cosmetic title system made yet.
Q: What about quivers and backpacks?
A: Terence will be handling that next season. If it doesn't come out it will be Terence's fault. SDF assigned me this task last week. How much you can carry will be tied to resourcefulness though.
Q: We have seen a lot of recoloring of models of skins. Will we see a lot more of this? We saw the gator was coming out though so that's nice.
A: Yeah we will have more recoloring. Each season we'd like to have a new model type.
Q: People didn't seem to like that the season pass was sort of pay for convenience. Plus it was temporary. Will any of this change for season 7?
A: We messed up big time for season 6. The extra shared stash that will be there, personally I just wanted an extra shared stash, we will be removing the consumable stuff. The big thing was that it felt like a mobile game because it was in our face. It was a good critique and we made a mistake changing the structure of the marketplace. We made it more inconvenient and then made you pay for it. That is all gone now.
The product area for the DLC will be a bundle package for high quality cosmetics. The big push will be 3x cosmetics for $9. We thought it would result in more revenue and SDF trusted in my judgement and he shouldn't have trusted in my judgement. We are removing some of that functional convenience for a reduction in our own revenue. The new cosmetics will be really good though with a ton of value.
The new DLC packs will be a cosmetic bundle that's seasonal and a shared stash tab.
Q: Will there be Twitch Drops for the new season?
A: Yeah we have learned how to do that In House so we plan on doing that for all seasons.
Q: Will we have self-found(SSF) for season 7?
A: The first two weeks of the wipe being self found felt good to us. If that goes well again it will just be an event that every season will have at the start. So Yes, the first two weeks will be self-found.
The wipe will be on the 23rd sometime on Tuesday. You know our track record.
Q: Will the Demigod Ranked Grind start on day one of Season 7 like it did for season 6.9?
A: We think the adventure rank season will be delayed. Because it's too much to do at the start of the season. We would like to combine solo/duo/trio ranked modes though so it's all tied together. You will gain adventure points regardless of which mode you choose. We ended up seeing that we can streamline those systems in season 6 and will implement it for season 7. It might not be perfect at the start and solos could get more Adventure Points but we will adjust that across the season.
Q: For High Roller there has been some confusion on what is considered teaming and what is not considered teaming. Are bans on a case by case basis or can you heal a guy that's low when he's fighting monsters? Can you drop people potions?
A: There sort of shouldn't be an inkling of friendliness in High Roller. It's the competitive mode.
Q: But we have microphones. Some people like to do that harder content but they still want to Roleplay and might not want to be sweaty all the time. People have various moods.
A: We want to give people what they want but at the same time we can't please everyone. Our design for high roller is that it's the sweaty place.
Q: So then you will now punish everyone in HR that's teaming?
A: Yes. Normals will be for fun and roleplay.
Q: Where are we with the Appeal in the Nexon vs. Ironmace case. How do you see it going?
A: We want to clear up some misconceptions. In May both parties were not satisfied with the lower court ruling. There's 3 big charges. Copyright infringement, unfair business practice law in Korea, and Trade Secrets. The first two are the really serious ones for Ironmace. The consequences for that would be taking the servers offline. In those 2 the court ruled in our favor. A 60 page decision that is still private only sent to the parties involved. Great for Ironmace though.
Nexon is appealing because they want the servers taken offline. They still think there's copyright infringement or unfair business practices. We are appealing because we have to pay a fine because they ruled that there were trade secrets violated. It has two parts, material side like documents and code and trade secret information like knowledge. This would be something like conceptual planning and a combination of concepts in our memories from working at Nexon.
To us it's ridiculous that they didn't really list what trade secrets we violated. We are appealing this and disagree with that loose definition of trade secret violation. We think we used general common knowledge. Even if we did go out on a branch and say trade secret information was violated there's no way that equated to millions in damages. They set the arbitration date of damages to the start of early access so somehow they get all 2 years of our profits.
We already paid all the penalties of the initial ruling. The interest if we didn't pay was huge so we just paid it all off and can move on. Plus if we win the appeal those original fines will be reduced.
There is of course a risk in the appeal process going forward if Nexon wins.
SDF has an ongoing criminal case but it's only personal and not on Ironmace. And that involved just using the hard drive at home to work on Project P3 while he worked at Nexon.
Rapid Fire Question Round
Q: Will Region Lock be removed? Some people are stuck in underpopulated regions. Like US West.
A: We understand that people are getting around Region Lock anyway with VPNs. We need to investigate this issue more. US West is kind of a dumpster fire and people clearly want to trade some latency to play on US East. The quality of US West is getting worse like Oceania. It's under consideration because players should have a choice but we are getting a lot of complaints especially from US West players.
Q: Going back to the 50 perks/skills/spells can you give us some examples?
A: There's so many. In typical Ironmace fashion some of it is just numbers. Some perks and skills are actually being changed. We want to first revamp and then add a bunch of new ones. The new ones we will be adding later on. This time we are reworking the current perks and skills.
You can see the new ones when patch notes drop.
He is looking at the slayer one but he rejected that one.
For example, the back attack on rogue will have a much wider 180 degree cone.
Also trap mastery will give rangers their traps back when they disarm them. We don't know if this will work on enemy traps.
Purgeshot* was a skill and now it's a perk.
Bard got an extensive Rework. Party Maker now gives an AoE ale effect(+ Str) without making people drunk.
Shapeshift Mastery on Druid will now affect spirit magic and they won't be able to cast spirit magic at all.
More than 50% of perks and skills have been adjusted.
Q: What about things like Holy Water and Cleanse on Cleric that aren't used at all? Or some of the things with demonform for Warlock? Or Eldritch Shield consumes dark shards but gives no benefit.
A: Holy Water will now remove curses and debuffs. Removing a debuff gives you the Bless buff.
Eldritch Shield will now give a 30% dark magic bonus to damage and spell casting speed.
Q: What about the issue of people camping around Red portals/down map zones. People literally just sit there knowing they can leave if they misplay without having to fight through getting their ass kicked. Isn't High Roller supposed to be sweaty? The interaction is that people can just walk away which is counter-intuitive to the whole idea.
A: The final level of the map is supposed to be the most hardcore. And you can not just hit a red at the lowest levels. So right now the higher floors have a sort of release mechanic that lets people keep going lower. For now we are keeping this.
Q: Right now with continuous dungeon you leave your spawn and fight through a room and suddenly a team just spawns behind you and follows the dead monsters and open door. This lets you either fight another team or 3rd party someone immediately. Can the queue time be longer and we have a full map instead of people just spawning behind us?
A: The first issue is that continuous dungeons allow people to spawn too close. The player spawn logic needs to be tuned. We are aware of this issue and have attempted more simulations to figure out the cause and side effects of our execution of continuous dungeons. It feels like you want everyone to start together to improve the overall quality of the session. We are thinking about this as well. This is heavily on our minds and we think we have a solution and possibly we can test this in certain modes. Possibly a hybridization of getting more people in high roller to start together.
Q: Is the goal still to have some type of talent tree at some point?
A: We are aiming for Season 8. It is definitely a goal.
Q: Will there be cloak skins?
A: I would like to figure that out but each skin would need to be done individually.
Q: Many of the polls I did had people wanting more content for what we currently have rather than an additional map. What is the focus of Ironmace in this regard?
A: The Water Map was created largely as a compelling swimming feature and to challenge and add to the overall vision of the game. Our largest goal is to expand the core gameplay loop of the game. We want to get the gathering hall in as soon as possible. It's another game loop that will feed into one another.
We have internalized a lot of knowledge and skills and we will continue to make interesting changes going forward and flesh out the largest content loops. SDF really wants personal housing and the gathering hall will be the first step in designing that particular feature. We need to put down some of the technical structure for these things first.
Q: Will there be another Artifact arena run before the end of season 6.9?
A: We tried to make season 6.9 self-contained so we could focus on Season 7. We don't want to hotfix the arena to get artifacts in there for the end of this season.
Q: Some of the new arena maps like 'Drain' are overly complex and simply not fun to play on. Will future maps be simpler or have better maps?
A: Right now we are using the arena as a test bed. Many of the maps are based around a modular system. The maps people have the most complaints about are the ones we try to fix the fastest and add things to. What are the really bad maps and we use that to signal how to fix those and future maps.
Q: Will there be more class balancing based on party size? Druid & Sorc feel oppressive lets say in solos but in trios they aren't as hard to deal with.
A: That would be par for the course in a class based game. Some classes will have advantages in solos versus in a party. We are taking that as a given but originally we thought our game would be made for trios. The semi wipe helped us figure out that solos and duos are an essential part of the game. Mentally now we understand we might not achieve perfect balance across all game modes and party types but we will really try and fix anything that is egregious. This will continue to be an ongoing process for us.
Q: Will there be more progression for craft skills like Mining, Herbalism or Fishing in the future. Maybe the chances of getting double ore on a hit if you really grind that system.
A: SDF will consider that when he works on the training system/talent tree.
Q: Are there other things that will be persistent across wipes in the future outside of our cosmetics?
A: This is my baby and something I am actively working on.(Terence)
Q: Will the netcode be available at some point so we can see our server side code or ping? Can we see what your server tick rates are like?
A: We understand why people like this. Similar to Counter Strike. In terms of resources that would be difficult for us right now but we would like to add that in the future. Why all of sudden are people asking for this? It seems like people recently have had optimization issues to the network and so we need to work on that and figure it out.
Q: Any news on the Monk Class?
A: The aim for Monk is Season 8. Maybe.
Q: Will we return to the slow looting of player bodies? Druids and rats are just quick looting our kills and running away. Will the slow looting come back?
A: The slow looting felt artificial to us. The risk/reward system needs to be tweaked and we have ideas on how to do this. In other extraction shooters when you loot a body the items dont appear right away. You have to identify the items and that takes time. Its not only a time thing. The priority on that started falling for us but originally you could discern items faster if you had more knowledge. So these days for technical reasons that would be a good idea to bring back. Theres a game element design to these systems and wed like to make looting cleaner. We also have to be aware of hackers and how anything we add might affect the information they can get instantly.
Q: Can you share anything specific about the upcoming Water Map?
A: There will be two bosses, The Ancient Stingray and also a Pirate named Bladehand. There will be multiple new artifacts such as the Trident. The map size is 7x7 but its a set layout compared to how the current maps are largely randomised. Its currently only one level.
The HR Matching pool gives us more leeway to combat streamsniping and teaming plus it limits the matchmaking pool significantly. We are optimistic about the random dungeons. We have the tools to easily do gear brackets as well that just brings a lot of complications with balance and increasing the matchmaking pools. We want to find the right balance for players to be able to fight people in higher gears.
We are thinking of a squire to riches mode as well in high roller. It's a bit of a hybrid of high roller risk free experience that might get a lot of the rats to play that instead. Plus the PvP would be much more equalized.
PvP right now requires a lot of time and effort with gemming and preparation. The adventure mode gets people ready and their feet wet but then they go into normals and everyone has legendaries. So there's a gap that's too heavy and we want to find a transitional stage. So we want to work on a hybrid mode. A playground for learning.
Right now the new artifacts from the new season may be added to old bosses since we don't have a High Roller mode for water map. It could come out during this season though. We have a lot of ideas.
Q: You guys posted about guns, are these from NPCs or usable by players?
A: This will be a normal ranged weapon that is class specific. It's similar to the windlass but a little bit different. We also will be bringing the cutlass for Season 7 as a usable weapon. Many weapons going forward will all have a blocking mechanic as well like bows. Rapier will have a riposte. Cutlass will operate as a lighter falchion and be usable by warlocks.
Q: Some of the rogues are asking about tumble or getting more skills that don't rely on invisibility.
A: There are no changes planned for tumble at present.
Q: Test server is not getting utilized at all. It feels like an afterthought.
A: There was a lot of internal restructuring and stuff. We felt like if we invested in these things down the line it would help us a ton. So we know the test server would help us down the line but everyone is overloaded at present.
Q: Is Druid getting a water form like Penguin?
A: Yes there's a penguin. They're supposed to adapt to their environments and have the strongest best mobility. It's very cute. The stat penguin will scale off will be Will. A very mentally strong penguin.
Q: Will Crush be receiving a change for Season 7?
A: That is going back to the power level it had before.
Q: Any new spells and skills? Some of the old classes have fallen behind.
A: Penguin for sure. We know others need more and its just outside our capacity right now. Step by Step. We know where we want to go with balance now. Phase 1 was reworking underutilized perks and skills. Phase 2 will be augmenting them with new things.
Q: Would Ironmace ever consider using a voting system for the roadmap. Where players can vote on some future features like in Old School Runescape. In order to vote you need a certain amount of time played or something and then for something to pass it needs 70% votes in the positive. Like Runescape is adding sailing because the entire playerbase voted yes on that feature.
A: We are trying to use our suggestion page much more now. We are cleaning up many of these things we originally wanted to use. The short answer is yes but at this moment no.
Q: Will Blood Exchange be changed for Barbarians?
A: That is getting a buff. SDF is considering adjusting it though.
Q: Is there a hint on this secret change/feature that you're bringing to the game?
A: Conceptually it's a Faustian bargain. You can make a deal in the game. Maybe something involving life. It's not permanent but we are testing a specific type of mechanic that will have far reaching potential in the future. It's an experimental WOW and will it even be possible in this type of game. Can you make a deal with the devil?
Q: Can shutting a door take the same amount of time as opening it?
A: That would make chasing too easy. We understand some of our maps are pretty small. It might feel like youre trapped in jail with a psychopath. It would make running away way harder.
We like the special keys and their new mechanic from this season. Doing more things in the dungeon and having to change your plans.
Q: Any changes to Dark Offering for Warlock?
A: The duration increase on its effects will be tripled to 45 seconds. There are so many changes even if a lot of them are just numbers. Because quivers aren't going in probably this season arrow stack size will be increased to 30.
Q: Any nerfs coming to Ice Cavern mobs?
A: In Ice Caverns the monsters are so hard but the big benefit is that it makes spawn rushing really hard.
Q: Will we get buffs or new items for lizards and other races?
A: Possibly half helmets in the future. We went in the opposite direction this time with the Crocodilian because his snout is so long. It could definitely affect animations and our goal is to get other things like Dwarves into the game.
Q: Any plans to put a merchant you can find into the dungeon?
A: Not yet but in the Water Map you can find the expressman since you can't go down a level. You will have to find him he is already there.
Q: Any changes to knock back against specific skills and perks?
A: For instance Breakthrough on fighter will no longer prevent any knockbacks. And this text will change on these abilities if it affects slows versus knockbacks.
Q: Will there be an auto sort for inventory or stash?
A: That will take longer than expected. We will reoptimize it.
Q: Is Time Distortion changing for Sorc?
A: Yes the penalty will be smaller but we will have a full list of all the changes to all the classes for Wipe.
Q: Will there be a trailer for Water Map and Season 7?
A: Yes it is being made now.
● ENDING NOTES FROM IRONMACE:
We will be going to the Tokyo Game Show. We don't have our own art booth but one of our partners will be sharing their space with us. We have water map themed items and swag. Come hang out with us.
We want to work on Race Sizes but not Pregnant Goblin. We will also never delete Druid.
We know we did a huge number on the good will you gave us so it's up to us to regain that trust. Our words probably don't mean much right now but we will do what we have to do. Hopefully you are willing to check in for the season 7 wipe to see our progress. If not Season 7 then Season 8.
Now that we have gone to the depths of the Ocean next up we will tackle Space.
Your feedback is vital to this development loop so bear with us for this origin point of the next content steps! We are very open and excited to improve.
We will continue to invest and do our best to develop Dark & Darker into a solid game that can be serviced for more than 10 years.
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