Talk with Designers: Season Edition

Hi everyone, we've been surprised by the amount of feedback and suggestions we've received from our community about the Song of Strife season, and we're truly grateful for your enthusiastic support. Today, we're bringing you another edition of Talk with Designers, where we'll touch on some of the most discussed topics and share our thoughts on how we plan to address them. Let's dive right in.

Q1: Why the nerf on AFK Rewards and free gifts in this new season?

Designer:

Typically, when we plan version updates, we schedule rewards for each season with four updates in mind. In subsequent versions, we have actually prepared more engaging events and gameplay features, along with ample rewards to enrich your gaming journey. 

However, we acknowledge that there may have been oversights in reward distribution during the recent season launch. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. To rectify this, we've decided to adjust the rewards for Season AFK Stage, Season Legend Trial, Season Corrupt Creature, and Battle Drills to match those you received during the Starter Story. 

Moving forward, we're committed to maintaining this level of generosity for every new season. Please be assured that these additional rewards are entirely new and won't affect what you'll receive from future events and activities. 

Your understanding and support are invaluable to us as we continue to strive for excellence in enhancing your gaming experience.

Moreover, rewards will be enhanced in certain modes. (These adjustments are set to take effect after the update planned for this week. Once the update arrives, all players in the new season will be eligible to claim these compensatory rewards.)

a. Season AFK Rewards: Diamond x100 and Invite Letter x1 will be added as stage rewards for the first 1,200 Season AFK Stages. The two rewards will alternate every 5 stages, starting with new rewards on stages 2, 7, 12, 17, etc. Overall, the Season AFK Stages will be more rewarding than the those during Starter Story.

b. Season Legend Trial: Every 5 floors, from the 5th floor to the 85th, the rewards in Season Legend Trial will now be replaced with those from the Starter Story. The 4 towers will provide a total of Invite Letter x36, Tidal Essence x360, and Temporal Essence x120 as rewards. Additionally, we're adding the Faction Acorn x10 reward every 10 floors until the 90th floor.

c. Season Corrupt Creature: In addition to the current rewards, defeating a Season Corrupt Creature will now reward you with Soulstone (S-Level) x15. Collect 60 Soulstones (S-Level) to obtain a random Epic hero, including those added to the Hero Wish List after their Rate Up Recruitment event has ended. We're also working on optimizing the Corrupt Creature experience, as the cooperative feature is one of our main focuses in development. We also have a new cooperative feature planned for upcoming updates during the Song of Strife season. Stay tuned!

d. Enhanced rewards for Battle Drill: Desolate Grounds. A total of 6 rounds of Battle Drills will be available throughout the entire season. 

e. Adjusted diamond rewards in small and medium chests found on the map from 15&30 Diamonds to 30&60 Diamonds.

Please stay tuned for more time-limited events like "Glamor Gift" in future updates. These events will feature plenty of rewards for everyone to enjoy.

Q2: Heroes specialized in dealing true damage, like Marilee and Korin aren't performing as effectively in Season Dream Realm battles as they did before, are we rotating them out? 

Designer:

Don't worry, we're not rotating out this type of hero. Our goal is to minimize the power gap between true-damage heroes and other heroes, while preserving their relative advantages. But Dream Realm bosses lack significant Defensive Stats in the current stage (before endless mode), which makes true damage heroes less competitive compare to other types. True damage heroes truly shine in Endless Mode; heroes like Marilee and Korin will remain top-tier damage dealers against certain bosses in that difficulty.

We realize that we've overlooked your early season experience before you could unlock the Dream Realm bosses on Endless Mode difficulty, causing some challenges in transitioning to new formations and raising concerns within the community. For the time being, we encourage you to experiment with different formations. By the way, Artifacts suitable for more formations will actually be unlocked soon (you can preview them in the Season Artifacts interface.)

We understand your concerns but encourage you to experiment with different formations. We'll keep gathering your feedback and monitoring the performance of all heroes on our end. We're proceeding with caution on any balance changes because we recognize the time and resources you've invested in these heroes. So, we're taking extra care with these adjustments.

Q3: What's the plan for this season? I'm confused about what's going to happen.

Designer:

The current season will last about four months, with new content planned for release at a steady pace. We've scheduled an update for each month, bringing in new events, features, rewards and other exciting content. But we will not introducing any new progression features in this season.

As you progress, your stat growth will be significantly capped after reaching a certain level, similar to what happened in the Starter Story. This is to prevent a significant power gap between new and veteran players in the middle and late stages of the season. In the Season Supreme Arena, we'll also set a Baseline Level to minimize the power gap between participants. This will allow you to play the game at your own pace.

We also want to talk more about the recent changes regarding the requirements for unlocking new areas. We made these adjustments after noticing a widening power gap caused by players progressing too quickly through new areas. In future updates, we'll introduce new mechanics to address these imbalances, allowing players to enjoy the game at their own pace while maintaining a healthy gaming life balance.

A heartfelt letter from the designers

Bringing seasonal content to this game genre was a bold move, one we took on with enthusiasm and determination. But we can't do it alone. Your support and understanding fuel our passion, while your feedback and suggestions steer us in the right direction. We're committed to improving each season with your input, and creating even more thrilling content for the game!

Thank you all again for your patience and understanding. Your feedback is invaluable and essential for shaping the future of our game.Finally, we want to express our heartfelt gratitude for the incredible support you've demonstrated for the new season "Song of Strife." 

As a small token of our appreciation, please enjoy this special gift—Redeem Code: hwidnabwbd

Redeem code content: Invite Letters*10
Valid until: 2024.06.14 23:59:59 (UTC)
Available on: live servers, PTR servers