Good morrow Prospectors!
We recently gave you all an opportunity to preview and test most of the content we have planned for Season 3 so today we are here to give you a summary of what we learned from that test. Though that build was in quite a good state, there were some issues that were to be expected and we appreciate all those who donned their lab coats to provide feedback with us.
There were several changes from what you have come to know during your time on Fortuna III. While we believe these changes will help bring a healthy flow of new and some veteran players back to improve the overall experience, there was a lot to sort through so we are still reviewing the full scope of all of the feedback that was submitted, but let's jump into some of the changes and how they were perceived.
Campaign overhaul
The first thing you may have noticed is that the First Time User Experience (FTUE) was updated to give new players a better overall view of what they should expect to find on their journeys around Fortuna III. The new beginner tutorial missions are far more achievable for the rookie prospector before they can gain the trust of the factions to earn more responsibility. Having a better feel for the basics of prospecting will help players find their bearings as they adjust to a new life as a prospector of Fortuna III.
Overall there wasn't as much feedback from this change compared to others, but it does seem that the updated tutorial more thoroughly covers a wider overview of the intricacies of life as a Prospector.
More than just the FTUE received an overhaul as the general types of missions and goals of certain missions were adjusted with the goal of long term playability in mind.
From what we gathered, we made decent progress towards making campaigns and missions more achievable and worthwhile, while refreshing them and prolonging the progression.
The addition of Badum's new questline with unlockable cosmetic items will give those who have reached the end of the main faction questlines something to continue working for, we have seen that there may be more work to be done in this department. Although we don't want the entire game to feel super grindy, there are some aspects that will require more time commitment than others while keeping things from becoming too repetitive.
The Howler
Never knowing where or when you might run into this new addition to the hostile fauna of Fortuna III, which is meant to land somewhere between a Marauder and a Crusher in terms of difficulty, will give each drop to the planet a new layer of uncertainty and unique set of missions for Prospectors to tackle. While it is possible to encounter the Howler on Bright Sands, there should still be a short grace period without worry until a new player leaves the beginner protection lobbies. The Howler is also the only hostile fauna on Fortuna III which gives players the opportunity to obtain it's unique items without directly engaging in combat if you're sneaky enough.
This addition was widely received as a positive change that will add exciting and worthwhile encounters during matches for Prospectors. A few changes may be implemented in order to help this better achieve the goals we have for this new aerial threat.
Free Loadout Runs
This was also a welcomed addition by nearly everyone who submitted their thoughts. Originally when we announced this addition, we mentioned that every free loadout would include "1 weapon with a bunch of ammo, 1 shield, 1 helmet, 1 backpack and a few health consumables", after further consideration we felt this might make these packages a little more useful than they were intended to be. The thought behind this was that Free Loadout Runs should be something to help those prospectors who are down on their luck and need an opportunity to run a quick risk-free drop on occasion, while not being so powerful that they guarantee success on every drop. For the playtest, we removed the 100% chance of meds, shields, and helmets to see if this would be a good starting point for the feature that allows us to make adjustments as we see how often they are used and how helpful they are in practice. There will be an opportunity to re-roll loadouts once every 24 hours if you don't like what the factions have put together for you, but that feature was not implemented during the playtest.
Given the feedback we received, we may have under-tuned the effectiveness just a tad and will be re-evaluating what will be included in these loadouts to better meet their mark.
Loadout Presets
We know this is something that has been requested for quite some time and something we are excited to finally bring to life in Season 3 to help you minimize the amount of downtime between matches. This gives you the ability to quickly grab a tried-and-true loadout of gear you enjoy and should save quite a bit of time, getting you back into the action with minimal work in most cases. We did see some unanticipated hiccups with this feature that we will work out prior to the full release of Season 3, but overall this was a hugely positive addition and we're glad to hear you liked it as much as we did.
MK II weapons
While we know many of you were hoping to see some brand new, never-before-seen additions to the weapon lineup, this was unfortunately not something that we could feasibly accomplish to fill the several holes in the current selection of firearms prospectors have at their disposal. Instead, we chose to introduce different variants of weapons you already know with slight differences in how they operate. MkI weapons are lower-tier versions of original weapons like an ICA Guarantee with lower penetration and damage values along with fewer options for which attachments can be used. MkII weapons are higher-tier versions of the original weapons like an AR-55 with increased penetration and damage values plus more options for attachments.
These 'new' weapons were meant to help fill some holes that currently exist in the meta and give prospectors more choice as to what their selected tool of destruction will be.
While some new variants can be purchased from the faction markets, other variants are only available by finding them during a match in loot rooms or crates.
Overall feedback on these additions was mixed between some understandable disappointment that these weren't brand-new weapons or that they were too difficult to find and that the weapons were desirable to find and offered healthy alternatives to other weapons already in the arsenal.
We do have some work left to find the perfect balance within the overall weapon landscape.
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Economy changes due to non-wiping after S3
Arguably (or obviously) the biggest change coming with Season 3 will be the removal of mandatory seasonal wipes. The current iteration of progression and economy would not be sustainable for a long-term progression model so we will also be adjusting how the economy works in order to make gameplay work better for an opt-in-wipe system. A few of these changes were previewed during the PTS in the form of ammo varieties for different weapons within each class, armor durability changes, standard insurance expiring after each raid, and overall longer progression through the main questlines.
A current issue during Season 2 has been how quickly the gameplay loop stagnated around end-game PvP with Basilisks, Kinetic Arbiters, and Voltaic Brutes dominating the meta. To combat this, overall 'end-game' gear will be much harder to obtain throughout the course of Season 3.
We believe there should be a 'wow factor' of sorts when someone is able to find and successfully extract with exotic guns or armor and there should be a handful of scenarios when it makes sense to run that hard-earned gear during a drop for more difficult missions and tasks. Part of this includes how quickly the protection of armor fades, how expensive certain kits are to feasibly run, and how much risk is involved in running higher end items. Moving forward, several changes will help limit the ability for exotic gear to flood the economy.
Ammo Varieties
Different tiers of ammo now scale in the cost to purchase higher tier varieties, which makes the decision to run higher tier kits more of a luxury and may not be worth it if your goal is just to grab a few materials or hunt a few striders at Dig Site. Running kits with higher tier weapons like Voltaic Brutes, Kinetic Arbiters, and other exotic or legendary weapons will put quite a dent in a prospector's pocket book which ideally will limit the amount that players are able to constantly run top tier kits without repercussions upon being foamed.
Armor Durability
We've seen plenty of suggestions for gear degradation as a system to possibly remove items from the economy over time. Currently overall armor durability has been lowered while the rate at which armor is damaged was increased, however gear degradation is something that we are definitely looking into. This change will of course impact the feel of raids and how long (or short) armor will keep you protected during your time outside of Prospect Station. You will find yourself needing to repair armor more frequently and lower the amount of time that players are likely to spend actively looking for fights rather than focusing on mission objectives.
Insurance changes
One change you might have noticed, and some thought may have been a bug, was standard insurance expiring after each match. This change was intentional and is a measure to combat what we found to be the biggest source of KMark inflation during previous seasons. Now, you will have to make a more conscious decision about when or how you insure items that you might like to be compensated for upon an untimely foaming.
Salvage insurance remains unchanged and items insured with Aurum cost will stay insured until they are lost There are many forms of this that we are exploring as possible solutions, but with permanent insurance on items, especially items that were not purchased in-match, there was little reason to never insure your items.
Overall Progression
Overall we want higher tier gear and weapons to be far less used than their low and mid tier counterparts, as they are prestige objects.
This will mean that ideally you will meet less players using the highest of gear tiers all the time, even when encountering grinders or sweatlords (no disrespect to them and their dedication), as it will be much harder to obtain than it currently is. You should carefully plan your visit to the surface and when you find a high-tier gun you should get the feeling of "I hit the jackpot!".
The addition of scrip costs to weapons means that players can't endlessly run around only looking for PvP fights relying on their abundance of KMarks to keep them going.
Prospectors will now also have to focus on how they budget their faction scrips if they want to keep their arsenals full.
Matchmaking
During the PTS, we disabled the usual squad size separated lobbies that many of you are used to on the current live servers in trusted matchmaking in an effort to minimize the total number of servers that would need to be supported over the weekend. At the end of 2022 (in update 2.6.0 to be exact), we adjusted matchmaking from being a extracted-loot-value-based calculation to a K/D-based calculation which at the time made quite a significant improvement in the feeling of matches for a majority of players, but as we got closer to the end of the season and extension of Season 2, that feeling did start to decline based on feedback we received from players.
You can look forward to additional adjustments to our matchmaking formula when Season 3 arrives, as we want to match players against other prospectors on more equal footing and prevent overly mismatched encounters during your time on Fortuna III, while of course still offering a variety of encounters.. There are a few different options that we are currently looking into and will have more information to share with you all as we approach the start of Season 3.
There is so much more feedback that we would love to talk about in greater detail, but better than talking about it we want to implement the changes that will help us achieve the overall goal of The Cycle: Frontier being an approachable game in the F2P extraction shooter genre.
We will have more information to share with you in a more in-depth patch note form prior to the start of Season 3 (read when Season 3 starts), but for now that is all we have to share with you all.
We cannot thank you enough for participating in the PTS, sharing your feedback in how we can most impactfully achieve our goals, and for joining us on the wild ride that CB1, CB2, Season 1, and Season 2 have been. Here's to more fun and excitement on Fortuna III for a long time to come.
Cheers Prospectors, and as always...Fortuna favors the bold.