Hello.
This is a letter from the lead developer and development team of Black Survival: Eternal Return.
First of all, we want to express our profound gratitude to all of our players waiting patiently for the release of BS:ER.
Unfortunately, we come to you today with an important piece of news that we want to apologize for. The tentative date of BS:ER's entrance to Early Access, scheduled for May, 20th 2020,
will be pushed back two months, to July 29th 2020.
The previous 5th Alpha test was a very meaningful experience for us. We were surprised by the number of players that joined, helped us test, and gave feedback - despite the extra steps of getting a key through our Discord server. Just hearing that the game was fun from most of you made the entire process worthwhile for us. We simply cannot express our gratitude enough.
However, the most recent test also made us realize that the game was rather far from being the game that we intended to launch on Early Access. Reflecting on the criticism and advice we received, our team felt strongly that the game
was still lacking in parts that players interact with and parts that players don't even see.
There is still a low number of playable characters, so players often meet the same characters each match. Even when playing ourselves, as developers, we also felt that the combat experience wasn't as smooth as we would like it to be. After playing and playing again for thousands of times, we realized that it didn't feel like a well-rounded strategy game just yet, - it just appeared to be one. New players were confused and found the game to have a high learning curve, and experienced players were losing motivation as they played.
It became clear to us that the game has improved with every alpha test, but if were asked if we feel that the game is competitive and complete enough to be open 24/7, we cannot confidently answer "Yes".
We are merely a small "indie" game company, but at the end of the day, a "game" needs to still be "fun" and we will not make any excuses to deliver you something worse. Given only two more months to prepare, the game will still have parts not up to our standards. Unfortunately, we do not feel that the game will be what you all expect of us in that short of time and we ask you to stick with us just a little bit longer. Our promise to our players is to make an incredible game, and we will take great responsibility in this and work even harder to bring you a better version of the game worth waiting for.
The schedule of our development process has greatly changed in the last months, but here is
our current detailed plan, beginning now until the release on Early Access in July 2020.
- Addition of 3~4 more characters.
- Key improvements concerning balance
- Fix an issue with the skill amplification builds blocking mastery effects and only applying equipment effects.
- Goals regarding mid-game strategy
- Improve the monotonous hunting gameplay problem of, starting mid-game, having to focus on bears and wolves alone.
- Wickeline improvement: features to announce her location and appearance in the game, and having her provide a buff to the player that kills her.
- Minor improvements of character skills. Improvements focused on skills requiring decisions and centered on timing such as long-ranged skills (Animations and skill mechanics will require at least 6 months to complete, we, unfortunately, won't be able to complete these changes, sorry T_T)
- Addition of item effects, including healing reduction.
- Game experience improvements
- Improvements of the combat experience, focused on improving sound effects, visual effects, expression of skill anticipation, and hitting effects
- Fixing all minor bugs pertaining to the most performed action in-game: searching/opening boxes.
- Visual improvements
- Big improvements of the lobby and map
- Improvement of the dull starts of the game.
- Matchmaking improvements
- Greatly decreasing chances of new players to meet experienced players in-game.
- Tutorial improvements
- Addition of custom/private matches
- Testing of team modes
- Start basic testing of duo and trio mode (May be delayed depending on internal development status)
- Addition of daily quests and account levels - achievement elements outside of the game
Elements unlikely to be completed by July have been excluded from this list. The final patch notes will contain more information and will be more detailed than this list.
As answers to our Discord survey about whether to focus on "character addition" or "team mode" varied greatly by region, we will gladly be giving up some of our free time to focus on developing both aspects as much as we can and to the absolute best of our abilities.
To wrap it all up, you will be able to see some of the improvements from this list before July through our
Closed Beta test.This
Closed Beta test will take place from the
end of May/beginning of June and last until just one week before the release on Early Access.
The Seoul and Ohio server will be open every day for 3 hours each. New servers may be added and opening time may be extended depending on the situation.
While still diligently taking notes of our player's feedback, we are planning to have regular updates every 2 to 3 weeks.
As always, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for supporting Black Survival: Eternal Return!
