Ankama Live DOFUS: Septembre 8 Recap Info - 2023-09-08 20:30

 

Introduction

If you've noticed some new faces on the live streams lately, it's intentional. DOFUS is a team project, and we're rotating members of the project during Ankama live streams to showcase the different people and their roles within our team.

The purpose of today's live stream, a decision made just before lunch today, was to provide an update on what's happening on DOFUS. To give you some context, we have a lot on our plate right now: Temporis is just around the corner, the following update will be hot on its heels, and about 80% of the team is working on the Unity porting. With all this, we haven't had much time to discuss changes we have made in the game, leading to understandable discontent.

We wanted to take this opportunity to address specific topics and introduce some of the changes we aim to implement soon, ideally before the Osatopia release. I don't have all these changes at the top of my head, and the goal isn't to provide an exhaustive list, but rather to exchange with you and outline the main points.

Alliance overhaul

The purpose of this livestream is to be transparent. To be as frank as we have always been, we realise the changes we've implemented have yet to hit the mark. We've noticed a decline in the number of AvAs, and this trend has only worsened in recent weeks.

However, we're not considering a return to the old system; the fundamental issue that the previous system wasn't effective remains unchanged.

Based on your feedback across our platforms, it's evident there are still imbalances that we can address.

General

The primary criticism we've consistently seen is that the AvA system doesn't offer enough rewards in relation to the investment it requires. We have several ideas to address this:

• Prism recipe: The investment in resources and effort required to craft a prism doesn't align with the benefits of placing one. We aim to simplify the prism crafting process, significantly reducing its cost.
• To enhance the appeal of owning and defending a territory, we're looking to adjust the experience bonus when a player from an Alliance fights a monster on a territory controlled by their Alliance.
• We're also considering extending the duration of a prism's invulnerability once it is placed.

From your feedback, we have realised that some of you feel we've stripped guilds of certain gameplay elements, transferring them to alliances. We want to reassure you our work on guilds is still ongoing, and other improvements are planned. The reality of working on a live game such as DOFUS with multiple simultaneous projects forces us to progress step by step and block of content. This can sometimes give the impression that the work isn't finished. We're contemplating ways to provide you with a clearer overview of the various game-related projects.

Kind of the Hill (KotH) phase

Regarding the King of the Hill phase in itself, we're looking to reevaluate the Scout role, which currently poses a significant problem. This role has become overly dominant in AvA:

• We plan to decrease the number of points this role earns during the KotH phase.
• The recipe for the Scout potion will be adjusted to make it slightly more costly.
• We aim to restrict the number of Scouts within an AvA.
• We'll likely revisit how fight points are calculated during the KotH phase.

Perceptors

As for Perceptors, we'll be revisiting some of their spells, intending to reduce their power in combat.

Recycling

We'll rework the bonuses related to the recycling system on a territory controlled by the Alliance and the bonuses for adjacent territories, which need to be increased to foster a conquest dynamic.
 

Progression, Drops, Challenges, and Removal of Idols

General Overview

Regarding the recent DOFUS update and the removal of idols, along with its subsequent implications, we've noticed a lot of discussions, questions, and concerns. We remain convinced that removing the idols was necessary, just as nerfing resource generation from achievements was.

We've been monitoring resource and kama generation trends for a long time and have always managed to maintain a balance between generation and destruction. We must not go to extremes and implement drastic changes so as not to destabilise the game's economy.

However, the adjustments made during the update concerning resource acquisition might have diminished the excitement during your farming sessions, and there's a growing feeling of a loss of enjoyment. We aim to address this by finding a balance between the previous situation and the current one: preventing excessive resource generation while retaining the joy and incentive of farming and obtaining rare resources.

From our studies, we've observed that some players have amassed significant stockpiles. This hoarding often happens when announcements are made, and we need to consider this when making changes to ensure these stockpiles don't negatively impact server economies.

Challenges

Your feedback clearly shows that challenges need to be more rewarding. In your opinion, the gameplay constraints provided by the challenge are too significant compared to the bonus it brings. We will address this firstly by increasing the base bonuses of challenges.

Furthermore, we've noticed that specific challenges aren't universally popular. Some, like "Elemental Mystique", will be deactivated soon. We'll then work on either improving them or introducing new ones.

Temporal Anomaly Bonuses

We will also increase the maximum bonuses for areas and possibly extend their duration. This will ensure a more significant and impactful influence on your farming sessions.

Quest Drops

We'll revisit the drop rates at which quest items are obtained to help your progression and reduce the frustration they cause. To delve deeper into a specific quest, we'll be focusing on the Turquoise Dofus quest.

Kolossium

Perhaps we weren't clear enough when we published the Kolossium devblog: it was an early release in the preparation process for the end-of-year update, with the intention of taking the time to discuss it with you. The content of the changes to be made to the Kolossium has yet to be finalised, and there's still time for us to discuss it together.

We've heard your feedback, and let's be frank when things aren't going well: you want us to do more. We'll reflect on what can be implemented to offer you more.

It was also essential to emphasise a specific point: matchmaking. Some of you are convinced it's the primary issue with the Kolossium.

In reality, and to be transparent, the real problem with the Kolossium is the lack of players participating. Avid Kolossium fans can attest that they often encounter the same players.

That's why we're focusing on making the Kolossium more appealing by changing how the league system works, for example.

However, this doesn't mean that the matchmaking is flawless and that we can't improve it. But it's crucial to understand that it isn't the core issue.

DOFUS on UNITY

The release of DOFUS on Unity will occur in several phases. One of the significant challenges for a game like DOFUS is testing the server history accumulated over the years.

We had announced that we would wait for the Unity version before launching new servers, which remains the plan. These will be both mono-account and classic multi-account servers.

We'll provide an update on the Unity project soon, similar to what we did during the Japan Expo last July. We had initially planned to discuss a topic dear to many of you at the Japan Expo: the characters. In the end, we withdrew it from the presentation as it would have been too much information in one go. But rest assured, it will be one of the next topics we address!

Miscellaneous Questions

Shadow Server Situation

Indeed, the situation on the Shadow server is quite dire. A few months ago, we followed the dynamics on this server with interest and, at times, the activity levels were almost comparable to what we see on Draconiros.

Upon analysis, the major factor that led to a significant drop in the epic server's population was the introduction of Temporis Retro. The combined effect of your content creators following the news (which is totally normal) and the similar player demographics meant that the server has struggled to recover.

We had to implement a restriction on server access for subscribers to mitigate the impact of bots that began flooding in.

The Return of Expeditions

We'd love to see them come back, and we already have several thematic ideas in mind. However, at this stage, we don't know when we'll be able to reintroduce them.

Infinite Dreams

We recognise that changes are needed, but we've chosen not to prioritise them for now. So, don't expect significant changes in the upcoming updates.

Will there be a PvM content addition by the end of the year?

Maybe…

Temporis VIII: Osatopia 2

A big thank you to those who answered the call. The pre-registrations are very promising. To give you an idea, we haven't seen such momentum since the first confinement and Temporis V.