World Corruption is dead, long live World Corruption

We thought the first incarnation of World Corruption had one issue. We were wrong. It had two.

The first issue: we broke the fundamental rule of Witchfire, which is: play at your own pace.

The longer you lingered in a region, the more corrupted it became. To “heal” itself, the map tried to push you out or kill you. Some games thrive on this kind of pressure - like Risk of Rain - but it doesn't fit Witchfire. We are about isolation, exploration, planning, and most of all, autonomy. From that angle, World Corruption didn't quite work - even if it did provide some unforgettable action moments.

We reacted quickly, releasing a patch that fixed a lot of World Corruption issues just a few days after the big update. Looking back, I think that patch did not weaken the feature enough… but we've also realized that tweaking numbers isn't the real solution anyway.

Why?

This is where the second issue manifests. It's one thing to make a cool feature; it's another to make a cool feature that you want to replay over and over again. World Corruption, even for those who truly enjoyed it, became exhausting after a while.

That is a red flag for us. We have players who spent hundreds of hours in the “old” Witchfire without burning out. I doubt they would dedicate the same amount of time to the game if we kept World Corruption in its current form.

I don’t have to guess why.

“I like to get on the expedition, conquer the challenges, clean up the level, wrap it all up nicely, and then come back to the Hermitorium to level up,” said Michał, one of The Astronauts.

With the current implementation of World Corruption, that satisfaction is impossible. You can never achieve a clean map. That kind of chaos is fun once in a while, but not always. Not for every single expedition.

I could go on, but the short of it is: World Corruption requires a redesign.

For what it's worth, I've already done it - on paper. I have written a proposal for World Corruption 2.0 that changes it drastically. Hopefully, it will satisfy both the players who enjoy the craziness, and the ones who live by the rule of playing at their own pace.

Here is the plan.

TLDR: World Corruption is nerfed. If you want it, pick up the Latent Orb, do Torments, or buy the Corrupt Stimulant from The Collector. World Corruption 2.0, a completely redesigned version, is coming in the next big update.

I think today’s patch is a good compromise. The “old” Witchfire is back, just with a little friction here and there to keep you awake. But those who want the chaos can easily unleash it. This solution is much closer to our design philosophy.

Enjoy the current incarnation while it lasts - it’s going to be replaced entirely soon.

Signed,
The Overseer
(known in secular circles as Adrian)

Interviews

You may have seen that the Reckoning Update had a bit of a media buzz surrounding it - various outlets have been interviewing Adrian on subjects related to the game and the overall condition of the industry. Here are a few highlights:

A different angle:

Witchfire, in a way, is a heist game. Like there's the witch, and she set up all these defenses. It's sort of like if you think about trying to rob a bank, there would be patrols, patrolmen, and infrared cameras. So imagine all of that just in a dark fantasy theme.

From DualShockers Interview.

On replayability:

I think a lot of people believe they are replaying these games because the shooting part is fun, which is obviously true, but I think a significant part of the experience is the mood and the world.

From PCGamesN (I).

On the importance of Early Access:

It’s a good example of why Early Access works, because only at that scale are we able to understand what doesn’t work.

From GamingBible.

On Steam and Steam Deck:

Steam is not really a shop. Steam is a community. And so we wanted to make sure that that community is basically served… but what we’ve learned, which was kind of surprising, is that making your game compatible, like Steam Deck Verified, actually makes your game better.

From FRVR.

If you want to read more, interviews are available at these links:
Gaming Bible, The Gamer, Mein MMO (German), IGN Italy (Italian), TechRaptor, eTeknix, PC Games N (II), PC Games N (III), PCGamesN (IV).

(A note from Adrian: The recent wave of interviews covered three topics: Witchfire, the state of the industry - mostly the AAA vs indie dynamic - and AI.

In case you missed the discussion on that last point, here is the short version: Witchfire does not and will not feature a single asset that was not created 100% by a human.

This isn't virtue signaling -- this game started as a project of human passion, and we see value in keeping it that way until the end.)

Hermitorium Archives

Before we begin this episode of Hermitorium Archives, I’d like to take a moment to repeat something I already included in various places - a few words of thanks.

The release of The Reckoning and its aftermath was a textbook example of why having a passionate community matters. Your feedback is and always has been priceless, but the absolute torrent of thoughts and comments we received all around the web once the update dropped was on another level, and it allowed us to course-correct when it turned out that World Corruption had dialled things not just to 11, but all the way to 15.

After we published 0.8.1, the first patch for the update containing a slew of balance changes, Arian released a statement - and one of the (late) comments under it requires addressing, to my mind at least:

It was not for the sake of experimentation. And yes, we really test our games - the last few days before an update drops are usually nothing but playtesting and bugfixing. The thing is, we’re all pretty hardcore - most of us just grit our teeth and soldier on, even if it gets properly hard, so we can sometimes lose perspective and tune the game to our own tastes. Which is fine 99% of the time, but sometimes we miss the mark and make it too hardcore - as was the case with The Reckoning.

To quote Pablo Francisco pretending to be Keanu Reeves: “we went too far”. But we’re still in Early Access, and such blunders should happen during this period, if ever.

That said - as Adrian mentioned it earlier - the latest patch for the game, 0.8.4, which has just dropped, tames World Corruption a bit more. It’s a temporary stop-gap solution for now, while we’re having a rethink. The concept will return - it’s far too potent to be left rotting on the shelf. Or underground. You get the idea.

Anyway, let’s dive in.

They are doing what to the tornadoes?!

We knew that these were coming. Hell, we were doing the same thing when we were testing the update prior to release - back then, the tornadoes did not disappear after you made contact with them, so they were much more annoying, but you could also use every single one a few times. Until you found yourself between three of them, but I digress.

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Witchfire/comments/1pstmld/unavoidable_tornado_riding/

Anyway, upon seeing this topic, my reaction was a bit different and a meme was born, so I think it’s best to let it do the talking.

I don’t feel so good, Mr Preyer.

There are a couple of things that have to remain constant, and the sport of Dimacher-bashing is definitely one of them. No matter what content is released and how hard we work on bringing new stuff to you, there is always someone who decides it’s time to have a go at one of the familiars. In this issue, we have a new kind of curse - all the ailments at once.

It was always in the realm of possibility and it had to happen sooner or later, but it’s still glorious.

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Witchfire/comments/1q3gtho/giving_dimacher_every_disease_at_once/

That’s a DAMAGE TICK.

Speaking of Dimacher, the battle with him has been an absolute cornucopia – and it seems that while some people struggle, others have made this skirmish their playground.

FilthMasterRich is one of the few who are often having a whale of a time – you can now use his experience, as he recently provided an important lesson in buildcrafting, showing everyone just how dramatically you can change your experience by mixing up the loadout. In the linked post, we have a full-fledged walkthrough of how to create a build that produces damage ticks capable of bringing almost anybody down, and I bet that includes the iron-clad familiar of the Witch.

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Witchfire/comments/1puczya/big_tick_damage_build/

Magnificent job.

I didn’t see any posters.

… And yet, the disco is here. I am going to start a campaign to have something like this in the game as an easter egg.

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Witchfire/comments/1ptkobo/what_a_strange_easter_egg/

Certified nerd-out

We don’t really have a gun culture in Poland, save for some rather unwise hunters who regularly confuse people with boars and cause tragedies, so this is quite exotic to us - a person who actually knows what they are talking about, and their analysis of the weapons in the game.

It’s fascinating to see how many details you’re able to find and learn about the genesis of various elements and components. That said, there is one thing we’re painfully aware of and we’ve yet to fix, but it hasn’t been mentioned in the post. Can you guess what we got wrong with one of the bigger weapons?

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Witchfire/comments/1q95xmh/gun_nerd_observations/

It’s not a walk in the park, it’s a sprint through hell

While assessing your feedback, there were numerous times when some of you called the game a walking simulator. The game plays as it usually does in most cases, but we know there are times when something doesn’t go according to plan and the whole map is empty. You can truly have a walking sim in the castle or on the coast, but this…

This is the opposite end of the spectrum. This is what happens when you’re really trying to extract and everything is thrown at you to stop you. The full clip is four minutes of fighting for your life, and it’s absolutely brilliant.

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Witchfire/comments/1prqi8y/okay_now_that_was_a_tense_escape_sequence/

Sneaking in (to the Vault)

The subject of alternative paths has been mentioned quite a few times in posts on Steam/Reddit/social media, and in our own posts - it’s always a choice and not something accidental.

It was the same when it came to the Velmorne Vault: we discussed the option to bypass the gate and not pay the entry fee, and we decided to leave this loophole open. There is one more hack (which is actually more of a bug that we will eventually fix) connected to the Velmorne Vault gate, but it appears that it hasn’t been discovered yet - which kind of reaffirms my belief in our playerbase and their honesty.

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Witchfire/comments/1q8w3om/bypass_a_locked_gnosis_3_gate_in_velmorne/

Cure worse than the illness

Well, the arachnophobia filter was supposed to eliminate spiders, not the fear of the creatures attacking you. Posts such as this one are a great indicator that the job is well done.

That’s it for now - this is likely our final post for a while, as we’re retreating to the depths of the Workshop to work on crafting the next stage of our road towards 1.0.

One more update in Early Access, bumping the version number to 0.9, and then 1.0 in all its glory and content. Including…

Oh, no spoilers, right.

Cheers!