TL;DR - in 1.04 we’re permanently unlocking the Armory and removing several metaprogression systems including star levels, capsules, and Prisma.
Items will no longer drop from capsules. Instead, Armory Items will unlock as part of initial Hunter’s Journey onboarding
The full Armory will be available by the time a player can queue for Ranked (Level 20)
Armory progression will not reset at the beginning of new seasons
Existing items may be updated or removed, and new items will be added
Star levels have been removed
All items balanced to approximately a 2-star level
Prisma and related systems have been removed
This includes Capsules, Weekly Vault, Prisma Extractors, to name just a few
If you’re interested in learning a bit more about the reasoning behind these changes, read on…
We’ve received a lot of player feedback on the Armory since our 1.0 launch. We began shipping changes almost immediately, and have continued across patches since then. But those changes have been focused on improvements that we could implement quickly, and still didn’t address more comprehensive updates that would take more work. We went through several different proposals for larger reworks, but ended up deciding that removing systems was the better path (and would be something we could do sooner - rather than leaving a frustrating system in place while we developed a larger rework).
Our goal with the Armory was to both create deeper items and make compelling out-of-game progression (something we felt we lacked at Open Beta.) Ultimately, we let our desire to create an engaging progression system supersede the competitive experience we want SUPERVIVE to be. Our goal with the 1.04 changes is to maintain the positive elements of the Armory and remove the rest.
The new Armory items themselves are staying. We’ve gone through many different iterations of items throughout our development journey, and this set feels like it’s enabled the most diversity in builds and playstyles across the roster (and we’ve seen that sentiment reflected in player feedback as well!)
One part of items we are changing is removing star levels. Going forward, items will have a single version, balanced at approximately a 2-star level. As the season progressed, we saw the power level of some 3-star items starting to have a warping effect by overly decreasing TTK and flattening the feel of combat. We’re going to be doing a comprehensive balance pass in 1.04, so some items may simply use their 2-star version, and others may have larger changes as needed.
One benefit of having the Armory unlock over time is that it gives new players a chance to read and evaluate an item outside of the Breach (where downtime is never entirely guaranteed). We want to maintain this as an onboarding feature rather than shotgunning all items to new players immediately, but will be drastically speeding up how fast players unlock their full collection, and taking randomness out of the system entirely.
So, items will no longer unlock through random capsules. Instead, items will unlock through the initial levels of Hunter’s Journey, with all items unlocked by the time a player can queue for Ranked (level 20). If you’re past level 20 by patch 1.04, you’ll have the full collection unlocked.
We will no longer be resetting player collections at the beginning of a new season. We will still use new seasons as an opportunity to add or remove new items, but when we do, they’ll be added to your collection automatically.
For Season 2 (coming in October) we have more than a dozen new items in the works, specifically to open up more viable playstyles and provide more options for builds/Hunters that currently have too few (such as Frontliners and Protectors).
Here’s a sneak peek at some work-in-progress items for Season 2 - this set is focused around knockbacks and disengages.
New Grip: Master Manipulator (temp name) - Knockbacks displace enemies 30% farther.
New Relic: Emergency Bubble (temp name) - After taking damage, if your HP is below 50% you detonate a bubble that shields you and knocks nearby enemies away.
New Relic: Jump Smash (temp name) - Launch yourself into the air. Reactivate to slam downwards and create a shockwave that blasts away enemies. The higher your slam height, the bigger and more damaging the explosion.
With the removal of the metaprogression elements of Armory, Prisma will be going away too, along with extractors, the forge, and the weekly vault. As a farewell to our Shaper’s favorite funds, we’ll be granting everyone who engaged with the Armory launch a unique ‘Prisma’ Callsign, two avatars, and 90 VP - set to deliver later in patch 1.04.
Thank you for all your Armory feedback over the course of our launch. (Truly!) We might not always get it right the first time, but we’ll continue to iterate to make SUPERVIVE the best it can be, each and every patch. Your feedback is an important part of helping us get there.
The Armory will be unlocked with Patch 1.04 on September 17th, 8AM PT!
~ the ViV team