LETTER FROM THE DIRECTORS

Hey, everyone! Bao here, Game Director for Fangs at Hidden Leaf Games. I’d like to thank you all for joining us during our Early Access period—we’ve had an amazing time connecting with players and seeing them learn about our game that we have been working on for so long.

It’s no secret that we keep our eyes peeled to our Discord server for feedback and suggestions; we couldn’t be more thankful for such a passionate and dedicated community. We have heard your concerns about the state of Fangs, and wanted to give you a glimpse at what the development team will be focused on in the next couple of months.

The efforts listed below are what we deemed important in the short term to improve the gameplay experience to both newcomers and returning players. Please note that all the information in this article is a work-in-progress, and subject to change as we get more data and realign priorities.




As we entered Early Access, we realized that we did not hit the quality bar for performance and stability. While we expected some hitches launching Fangs while it’s in development, we chose to focus on testing gameplay features at the risk of server crashes and framerate issues. We heard your feedback—while it will take time, our priority now is addressing the game’s performance. Here’s what we accomplished for this patch:
⬩Optimized the way our game loads assets to prevent hitching.
⬩Increased server tick rates to be more responsive.
⬩Improved hero ability VFX performance.
⬩Adjusted lighting to be more performant on all settings.
⬩Improved material costs and overall draw calls.
⬩Increased server/client update rates to help eliminate rubber banding.


We have received a lot of feedback about the combat experience—specifically that hits do not feel satisfying. Since our Early Access launch, we have been working on a solution. So far we have made updates to the visual effects for Rose and Somnia, as well as improving hit satisfaction for all hero projectiles. This will be an ongoing process as we update the rest of our roster to meet our new quality standards. You can find a preview of the updates to Rose and Somnia below, as well as a few updates to hero VFX hits. Additionally, we have made significant changes to projectile speeds, cast times, and other clarity issues to improve the impact and satisfaction of these spells and make them easier to read.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]




[h3]Shards[/h3]
In response to player feedback, we are making significant changes to the way Shards work. While we appreciate the strategic gameplay that Shard running adds to the game, we understand that it can be frustrating for many players who cannot access high level play. To address this issue, Shards will now be less frequent, but will have a larger impact when they do appear. They will spawn in the same north and south areas of the map and feature an HP bar. The team that destroys the Shard will be granted an energy buff and be able to revive all their dead teammates.

[h3]Health Packs[/h3]
We have removed channeling from Fangs matches to increase the game’s tempo, and as a result, Health Packs will now work upon pickup. If you attack an enemy while they are receiving the heal-over-time effect from a Health Pack, it will prevent them from healing further. We want there to be less downtime between fights, and this change will encourage more team fighting.



[h3]Ultimates[/h3]
We have received mixed feedback about the strength and power budget of Ultimates. While they are fun to use and combo together, they were too easy to access, which resulted in players constantly using them back and forth. To address this issue, we have increased the cost of mana for Ultimates across the board and introduced a new pickup item that grants energy to compensate for the increased cost.

[h3]Positional Augments[/h3]
We are removing some of the less intuitive Positional Augments and Boons that contributed to low TTK (time-to-kill) for heroes. Additionally, most of the Augments associated with Shard running have been removed.



[h3]Leaver Penalty[/h3]
We understand the frustration unreliable teammates can cause to the gameplay experience, and agree that something more had to be done in Fangs to address this. After extensive testing, we are introducing our Leaver Buster feature to punish players who repeatedly leave games or AFK.

[h3]Hero Select[/h3]
As part of our new ranked experience, we have updated the Hero Select UI to be more in line with the rest of the client—we have also introduced a new ranked-only feature for blind-draft mode. Both teams will pick heroes at the same time and will only be revealed once both have locked in. This should allow for more planning with your team when ranked points are on the line, although we are not yet ready to add full-draft without mirror matches.



[h3]Career Page[/h3]
We have made some bug fixes to the career page and updated the UI to be more in line with the rest of the client updates we are making.



[h3]Voice Chat[/h3]
Fangs is best played with friends and parties, but we want solo queue players to also have the advantage of better coordination. To that end, we are adding VOIP for both parties (players you are grouped with) and teams (players you were matched with.)



[h3]Pre-round UI and Recommended Kits[/h3]
As players explore the Augment system, we noticed that newer players would still struggle with choosing the right combinations. We are updating the pre-round selection to include multiple presets and the ability to edit your own.



[h3]Missions Update[/h3]
We are updating Missions to make them easier to track and complete. The UI and content will be revamped to make things clearer, and Missions will no longer auto-grant upon completion. Remember to claim your rewards after completing missions!



[h3]Tutorial and New User Experience[/h3]
We have updated the new user experience to break up the content to be more digestible, and added rewards for completion. This should allow veteran players to get into the game faster, while also providing new players with more guidance.

[h3]Better Matchmaking for New Users[/h3]
We have added some features to improve matchmaking for new players, which should ensure that they are not matched against veteran players.

[h3]New Regions[/h3]
We are happy to announce that Fangs is also coming to the following regions: Asia (North East), Asia (South East), and Australia alongside new language options: Japanese, Korean, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Like all aspects of the game during Early Access, our localization efforts are a work-in-progress and subject to improvement as we continue to work on the game.





[h3]Upgraded Visuals[/h3]
We are currently in the process of updating the visuals on our game maps, starting with Crownwatch. You will see new grass and lighting that is meant to feel more magical and vibrant.



[h3]Bases and Turrets[/h3]
After getting a good understanding of our new player experience, we realized that the lack of a "safe place" for players was causing issues. To address this, we have added healing fountains and turrets to the base to provide a safe haven for players to retreat to.







[h3]Brutus[/h3]
Meet Newtus! Brutwo? Yes, Brutus has a new visual! As Fangs continues to evolve, we are also rethinking some of our older hero designs and bringing them up to new standards in our game’s art direction. Our beloved stomp king still has the same personality and moveset we all love; his new appearance simply makes him more original and fitting of the rich world we have built for Fangs.



[h3]Rose[/h3]
Rose was a character who we were pretty satisfied with overall. However, we had the opportunity to make some quality-of-life focused changes to her casting rhythms that should increase overall satisfaction.

[h3]Somnia[/h3]
We have updated Somnia's kit to give her a more distinct role in the roster and have given her visuals a much needed upgrade. Somnia’s Passive has been a source of frustration for us for a while. It was hard for players to track and also modified her cooldowns in ways that made it hard for opponents to understand her current threat level. By removing the cooldown refund, the passive will refresh 3 seconds after the last empowered cast. Somnia should now have a more consistent casting rhythm and a power level that’s easier to track. This also gives us more room to tune her in a healthier way, and opens doors for further Augment development down the road.

[h3]Zoey & Boo[/h3]
We have had some difficulty balancing our premier healer in the game. Many of her abilities do not always function as expected, and her partner has also had reliability issues. Our changes are aimed at making her Ultimate ability more reliable and consistent, and also at introducing more counterplay to her Passive in order to improve the windows for her healing and casting.



The first major update goes live on January 11, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for our detailed patch notes. Thank you again for playing Fangs during Early Access, it means so much to us that you are a part of this journey. This article only lists some of the first goals in our Development Roadmap for 2023 and beyond, so please look forward to future content updates.

See you in the game!

—Bao Lam & Directors of Hidden Leaf Games