Greetings, Scavengers!
Firstly, we wanted to thank all of our testers who participated in the latest July playtest. During the test we gathered a lot of new data regarding many different aspects of the game, especially regarding our recent progression changes. Also, a big thanks for all the created feedback posts, suggestions and bug reports (in-game and on Discord).
As we continue to evaluate everything we received and adjust our plans, we want to take some time to give you an overview (like we did in April) of what we are currently working on and what is still to come for the dev team in the next months.
Expanding the World:
Our content designers are continuing to expand the world with new areas, points of interest, and content that will make exploration feel more rewarding. After finishing most of the areas north and west of Ashwater, including Hardwick Harbor, Tradefield District, Ashwater Airbase, Transit Corridor, Bristlecone Preserve and others as well as the new 404 and Forum Transcendum factions and their respective strongholds Honeypot and Pinelake Retreat. They are now shifting their focus to the southern and eastern parts of the world:
Safehouse UI/UX Rework:
A small part of the team continues its work on giving the Safehouse a fresh look and improved usability to make managing it more intuitive and enjoyable. In this rework, which is planned for release later this year, we are focusing especially on making the interface much cleaner, clearer, and easier to navigate so players can spend less time fighting the UI and more time playing.
Planned Combat Improvements:
We received a lot of valuable feedback from our testing community about combat feeling stiff and how we should improve it. Today, we are happy to share with you that we have several improvements planned for a future game update later this year.
We are actively working on making fights feel smoother, faster, more responsive, and more satisfying overall. In general, we want to improve the current ragdoll system for enemy creatures so that hitting and shooting enemies feels much better. We are also adding a new scrolling combat text system to the game, and we want to change the way buffs and debuffs are displayed so that it is clearer and easier to read what is happening to a character during combat situations. In addition, we continue our weapon balancing, and yes, rifles will also get more work done (wink), while we also add more variety to each of the different weapon types.
Melee combat will receive more love and attention from the team through a combination of new animations and sound effects, overall skill balancing and fine-tuning, as well as additional quality-of-life adjustments. Our goal here is for melee fights to feel more enjoyable and faster in the future.
For ranged combat, we are adding some highly requested features such as bullet trail rendering, a new UI to display the number of bullets remaining in the current magazine, more crosshair improvements, and other QoL changes.
New Faction Currency and Shop:
In one of the next game updates, we are implementing a new vendor system for the different factions in the world. There, players will be able to buy faction-specific items using a new currency called "Favor." Favor can be earned through faction quests and missions once a player character’s reputation reaches the maximum level. This system gives dedicated players access to new rewards and additional long-term progression.
Guild Quests Rework:
We heard a lot of feedback about guild quests, and those are getting a rework as well to make them better aligned with the rest of the game’s progression. We want to improve the overall structure so they feel like a more valuable part of guild gameplay.
New PvP Feature Coming: Sectors
For PvP fans, especially guilds, we have developed a new PvP feature called "Sectors." Sectors are dedicated areas in the world where guilds fight for control in order to earn special guild rewards and perks. This feature is intended to create more meaningful group conflict and give guilds new reasons to compete against others in the world. More details on Sectors and how they work will be shared in a future developer blog.
Other Plans
Auction House UI/UX Rework
Improving our Anti Cheat Systems
Everything mentioned above, along with a few unannounced additions, is part of building a stronger foundation for the game. We understand that this work is not always easy to see, especially between playtests, and that from the outside it may sometimes seem like progress is slow. Even so, we are working hard to move as fast as we can and bring new content, features, and changes to the community. Please remember that Persist Online is being developed by a small team of 20 people.
Thank you for your patience and support - we will continue to keep you regularly informed about our development progress and what lies ahead.
— The Persist Online Team