Solo Mode Improvements and Teaming Punishments
Hello Lumia Survivors!
We’ve heard, and seen, a lot of feedback regarding some more pressing issues of Eternal Return. We’re working to enhance your overall experience as much as possible, and there are a couple things that we’d like to talk about.
[h3]1. Current situation of Solo mode in Ranked Matches[/h3]
Many Solo mode players were waiting for Ranked Matches. After the implementation of ranked, the amount of players in Solo mode increased greatly.
However, we’ve noticed an uptick in issues that come along with solo mode in a battle royale. In the current Solo mode top tier players seem to avoid combat, which increases teaming occurrences - both taking away the fun of playing against enemies and going against the terms of fair game.
Teaming in the Solo mode is not the fault of the players. Strategic teaming is sometimes a valid win condition - look at it as a players’ utmost efforts to achieve victory under the given conditions. Also, in order to stay alive, some players appeal to the use of these types of external strategies. Among the three modes: Solo, Duo and Squad, some characters are likely to be better with a team than in Solo.
However, if the weaknesses of a character are overcome through teaming, if you leave a character alone via a “teaming is strategic” viewpoint, then Eternal Return will no longer be a “fair” game.
[h3]2. Let’s make the game fair, together![/h3]
Unfair games have no future in E-sports in the long run, and as it’s hard to attract new players in the short run. Little by little, the game will operate in a league of its own
We want Eternal Return to be an awesome and attractive game for many more people. The more skilled we become, the better we will do - we want to be a game that is fun to play from the first match, a game that people talk about playing, a game that is honorable and fair.
A big reason for these issues is that we focused on features vital to the game system. Ranked matches, reconnections, etc, which caused us to unintentionally put off said issues.
We haven’t been able to fix the deep rooted problem of teaming in the Battle Royale genre, but we are aware that this is one of Eternal Return's biggest problems. We're working hard, and trying a lot of things, to make improvements. We will be rolling out a “Solo Mode Elimination Bonus” in one of our next updates to account for this.
We’re going to implement small improvements quickly. During the pre-season after the end of Season 1, we will make some basic changes to the “last restricted area” system.
We believe that we can improve our game along with our players. We think it’s possible to work together and sympathize with players; through diligent improvements that you all help us uncover and prioritize, we believe our game will not fail.
We still have many things to work on for Eternal Return but with your help we can become a fair and fun game that everyone will enjoy.
[h3]3. Reinforcing teaming punishments[/h3]
During our coming update we will also implement supplementary measures intended to strengthen teaming punishments. We will also add additional teaming rules.
1. Players may not give items to survivors who are not part of the same team.
2. Players may not stay near another player who is not part of the same team for a long time, avoiding combat, before assigning final safe areas.
3. (NEW) Players may not stay close to another player who is not part of the same team, avoiding combat, in the final designated safe area.
4. Common sense showing a player exhibiting obvious and excessive signs of teaming.
Number 2 applies whenever players stay still or move together, in a visible ratio, for more than 20 seconds. Number 3 refers to when players stay still for more than 7 seconds without attacking within a range of 3m.
The times and distances mentioned above are an example. We cannot implement these rules programmatically regarding teaming. In law and sports, a person (judge, referee) rules based on regulations. Teaming, its intentions and severity, will also be judged. We will work on improving regulations little by little from the point where they can be relatively clear to apply.
We will appreciate all feedback and ideas you may have to improve Solo mode to make Eternal Return a more fair and fun game.
Thank you.