Hello everyone,
It’s been seven weeks since
our last dev letter, but it feels much longer considering how busy we are around here!
In our last letter, we aimed to implement 18 new features. We expect to cross off 16 of them by next month. Eternal Return: Black Survival still has a long way to go but with your continued support, we have faith that we will eventually surpass your expectations with each new update!
Just like patch notes, the dev letter is packed with tons of new information, so let’s get started.
What’s new? Since our last letter, we introduced some new features that mainly revolve around the routing system. These features have set the foundation, but we plan on improving with every new update and your feedback:
- Meteorite appearance and force core strategy
- Route recommendation score system
- Skill route display order
- Author descriptions for saved routes
- Automated route recommendation at game start
- Immediate range view indicator
Changes coming in April
- Looting system improvements
- Awareness improvement for full inventory and items that can be disregarded
- UX improvement for targeted items on the right side of the screen
- Independent friend and message system
- Solo mode: multiple safety zones will be implemented (Final zone rework)
- Overlap of terminated players and animals will be improved
- Players will have target priority
- Legendary item and item skills will be added
The following two features are always in progress and we will continue to improve them with each update:
- Improved early-game character balance
- Preventing overly cheese strategies
We're working on 2 more features that will launch after the implementations of above features, likely sometime after May
- Public Beta (Test Server) Environments
The implementation of the public beta environment will be postponed.
Although a beta environment increases development reliability, our team simply lacks the manpower to develop several branches simultaneously.
The public beta environment will continue to be fleshed out and implemented the correct way. Stay tuned for that.
- Accepting/Rejecting matches after pressing the Start Game button - Improvements to game loading process
Improvements to our matchmaking processes will be difficult to complete by May. Server code needs to be reorganized on a large scale. During the game loading process, each client must interact back and forth between the API server, Matching server, etc. In order to improve this across all modes, we’re going to need to take a long look into it.
Seasonal Change - Pre SeasonWe appreciate every feedback and suggestion that we receive from you. Every single one of you all are more helpful than you could imagine. Throughout the pre-season, we aim to improve balance issues including characters and weapons.
Pre-Season OverviewOnce Season 1 ends, the pre-season will begin on March 30th after the maintenance.
The pre-season will last for four weeks until April 28th.
- Season 1 Rank Rewards will be given out on April 28th based on the MMR end point of March 30th (Wednesday).
- Ranks will be reset when Season 2 starts on April 28th (Wednesday).
Changes to the Last Restricted AreaFrom teaming to unfair character matchups, we’ve heard all sorts of feedback regarding the final restricted area - especially in solo mode. We have tried our best to balance out characters and their abilities, keeping the last restricted area particularly in mind.
As we compete for two safe zones where only one can stay before the final safe zone, we aim to create more improvements that will hopefully reflect more fair combat engagements.
Damage formula change - Skill Amp, Extra Normal Attack Damage, Crit DamageA big change we’re making is a rather large adjustment to the damage formula.
In the current iteration of the game, skill amp and extra normal attack damage are calculated by first adding the flat value and then multiplying it by %. It will change to calculating the % first, and then adding the flat value.
With the existing formula, ENAD was logical but it ended unhealthy. As amped damage that disregarded defense it had a large impact on the value of Defense and HP.
Critical hit damage will be scaled from 200% to 175%. Decrease in critical strike damage, which was previously applied to every head piece, will be deleted to mitigate the critical strike change. This change will allow critical-hit builds some more creativity and more builds to choose from.
Item Supply Structure - Box / Air Supply Crates / Animal DropsWe plan on improving the supply structure for items to align better with the gameplay flow.
During pre-season, air supply crates will be improved to match early-game and late-game playstyles.
Previously, air supplies have been divided by rarity. By changing the items given depending on time, armor that can be used as a stop-gap before getting better gear will be supplied towards the beginning when looting can be complicated, and higher value armor and traps will be supplied later.
There are a lot of changes that need to be made to spawn points and box placements for the first 1~2 zones.
Our current target was to equalize the number of boxes that can be within a certain distance,but we are looking at the value of hyperloop and of moving to a neighboring area, and considering short-range teleportation or acceleration objects that may improve the underlying imbalance.
However, since the placement of boxes or the addition of objects is a big task that requires new art work to be done one by one, we’ll start by looking at season 1’s biggest offenders: archery range, alley, hotel, avenue.
Gameplay View Extension (Camera Position)The camera view will be farther away, increasing the width displayed, and will no longer zoom according to the vision range.
With vision range being fixed, controlling skills and movement will be more consistent. In the future, we’ll add the option to zoom in even further on your character.
Additional Plans for Pre-SeasonBoth big and small, there are going to be a lot of changes during the pre-season.
- Improvement of Normal Match Matchmaking (common matchmaking logic divided into server-specific matchmaking logic and subdivision of the remaining servers for duo/squad matchmaking)
- Targeted items (yellow triangles) will be displayed on the left when opening a box
- Melee / Ranged Healing Reduction Effects
- Differentiate between melee and ranged healing reduction effects
- Wolf and bear respawn timer
- Ready time 5 seconds immediately after the game starts (time to make a movement while looking at the satellite radar)
- 5 seconds to prepare once the game begins (you cannot move, satellite radar helps you plan out your path)
- Weapon completion ping
- Weapon skill reorganization
These changes might sound daunting and confusing, but we believe it will help with balance adjustments for certain characters and weapons. We will try our best to ease these new changes into the pre-season as gently as possible.
Season 2 Progress PlanSeason 2 will begin with the 0.31.0 update, scheduled April 28th.
Season 2 will last for about 5 months.
We are focused on the features mentioned above, but we'd also like to talk long-term and from a different perspective.
Large Scale Systems Scheduled to be Introduced During Season 2:Replay System
- The basic framework is complete and it is currently being tested internally
- We are currently performing stress optimization tests and are planning on introducing a new internal operation tool during season 2
- After months of verification of our internal operation tool, we will gradually expand to full-scale delivery to the game.
Start Game process adjustments
- Instead of the current and weapon selection-start point selection, we plan to combine them all together and have the character-weapon-spawn selection start after being matched
- We want the weapon choice to be more strategic, and give some breathing room for each weapon to be viable.
- Duo and Squad will better support finding random teams by putting teams together in advance.
Practice mode
- This is a high priority for us. We know a lot of you want a free mode where you can test out certain item builds, skill orders, and combos, etc.
Voice chat
The voice chat feature will help enhance Duo and Squad gameplay.
Voice chat will be especially helpful for premades. We know a lot of you use Discord, of course, but it’s nice to have alternatives.With that said, we are still considering voice chat in random teams. Yeah, we’re well aware of the drawbacks of it...
Our goal is to complete at least two of these features during Season 2 and complete all four if it’s possible.
Public Beta EnvironmentsThe public beta environment will launch after the above basic systems are developed. The stability will have to be greatly increased, even if that means slowing down development speed.
Improved TutorialAnother area where we received the most amount of feedback was the tutorial. We know it sucks. We plan on revamping the tutorial and look into changing the default character.
We mentioned it in our previous letter and have begun to lay the groundwork, so we plan to introduce a new tutorial version in Season 2.
Rank System ImprovementFrom Season 2, Titan and Immortal will no longer have tiers, and Immortal will be changed to a rank system. (Read: Top 1000)
The method of calculating rank points will also be improved so that the duo and squad can partially reflect individual kills.
Improved UX and Features for Duo/SquadEach mode calls for a different playstyle and communication needs. We aim to improve all three modes with every update, but we plan to give a bit more love to the UX and features for Duo and Squad.
In order to help out with team communication, we plan on implementing features such as setting up team routes so you can check each other’s target items.
New Characters and Content Release PeriodThis year, we released Bernice as the 25th character. We’ll continue to introduce new characters, but we also plan to put more effort in their appearance and mechanics.
We also plan on including EVEN MORE content with the major updates that occur every two weeks
- Item skills will be added for every major update starting from Season 2
- We currently release 1 skin at a time, but you’ll start to see 2 skins will be released together in Season 2
- Although new weapons for existing characters are not introduced at regular intervals, we plan on adding more.
This pre-season will be the first major revamp of features to Eternal Return. Naturally, there will be issues that arise throughout Season 2 - but we will do our best to fix them as they come up. We will continue to share ongoing developments through the roadmap and keep you all in the loop.
(Notice: the development schedule is not easy to estimate in advance. If something is on the roadmap, the schedule is very volatile and there will definitely be changes)
Thank you from everyone at Nimble Neuron. We’d never be able to get this far without all of you.
