It's that time of year where I give a brief report on what's been happening and what's coming down the pipe! Player Expansion I have been extremely pleased with the way the Player Expansion has gone. The goals of the player expansion were: gives players some idea of how the process goes gives players a chance to participate more formally in the rune design process allows players to provide continued feedback during the process create an expansion with very few new abilities In particular, I want to thank those who took the time to review the preview threads and provide feedback on the evolution of their designs - this is how the design process works - things rarely stay the same from start to finish for various reasons - both from a balance perspective to other considerations. Full collaboration happened less than I'd like, but that's always going to be difficult with this sort of thing due to the scattered nature of the process and the people involved but some players and I did manage to collaborate quite a bit in either the forums or via PMs/Discord, and I hope you all enjoyed it. In terms of the success of "no new abilities" I have to say it worked out better than I expected - there were a number of fairly interesting designs. I am not sure how much mileage we can get out of a second one with such a restriction, so it's likely that the next time this comes around the restrictions will be relaxed somewhat - but of course even with new abilities allowed not every rune will be able to have a new ability. New Client The new client is coming along slowly. It's taken far longer than anyone would have liked, both internally and externally. Several things happened that were largely outside of our control and the project has been much tougher than anticipated. I have tried to provide information and leaks where I could, but at some point you just run out of things to say other than that it's still coming. New Player Experience One of the things we were able to change with the new client is the way new players will obtain their initial runes. Public Decks will be going away and all decks that the player receives will be editable from the start - players will be able to earn multiple decks (similar to the contents of the Public Decks right now) via playing the walkthrough campaigns. Public Decks were an interesting idea, but did not faciliate the path to players making their own decks and had a host of other problems related to maintaining playability, etc. The new client is also making a clearer distinction between Casual and Ranked play, providing 1v1 and 2v2 in both areas (with bots currently working in 1v1 and planned for 2v2). We are also revamping the Pack Structure to make opening packs something you do more often, as well as increasing the ratio of higher rarity cards in packs relative to their cost and other rarities. More details here: http://forums.poxnora.com/index.php?threads/preview-pack-updates.25146/ Abilities and Ability Consolidation We have continued to streamline and consolidate abilities, and I am pretty happy with that progress. Most duplicates abilities have now been taken care of and most abilities that remain serve a particular purpose. There are still some that I'd like to do, and in particular the fact that many Rank-based abilities still exist that don't really do anything with Ranks is still something I plan on tackling, but they are kind of low priority as simply primarily using a high rank of them is functionally the same as making them 1 rank for most use cases. We have also established pretty good templates for how abilities should function now, making abilities play more consistently and intuitively relative to each other. Of course, there are still many abilities, especially older ones, that don't play by the rules, and "attacks" is still a problem that we are continuing to clean up. New abilities will likely follow these templates, for example, standard AEs of 3/5/8 spaces, etc. but in genearl I'd like to continue introduce more specific, mechanics/clause driven abilities (you may have noticed this trend with recent expansions with abilities like Absolute Zero and some of the Arroyo abilities) , which will help push theme development indirectly. Abilities like Gift: X and Sabotage: X seems to have been fairly successful. While Gift: X can create imbalances they are also the sort of abilities that make deckbuilding interesting and fun and creates new decks by allowing for emergent interactions and combinations (always dangerous balance wise, but it's those interactions that makes games like PoxNora worth playing over Checkers). Sabotage: X is the kind of templating I want to do more of - it allows for the creation of an intuitive set of abilities that can span multiple themes while still making sense for each, and provides tactical nuance during play. Balance In general, I am pretty happy with the current balance. There is always room for improvement and the meta is always going to shift, but many themes and decks are fairly competitive right now and offer quite a variety in playstyles. There are some outlier decks at the top end as there always are, and those will be addressed when I can get a patch in (more on that below). Theme Development While not everyone is into themes, themes are an important part of the way PoxNora is played. Once upon a time, the factions WERE the themes, but with so many runes now, many players desire more segmentation and different types of synergy between runes. Themes provides a way to think about this, both from a player perspective and from a design perspective. One of my main goals for future releases after the new client/PS4 stuff has cleared itself up will be to focus on developing themes in the same way that Salaman and Minotaurs were developed - providing them with a clear vision and a thematic goal in terms of playstyle, and then giving them the tools to execute that vision. It's problematic to do this sort of thing when I have very little engineering time since it often involves creating fairly unique abilities (as with the case of the way Dimension Doors work and the Salaman racial abilities). I have been following discussions on several themes in the faction forums so you can expect some of those to be worked in the future. In these cases, expect one or more of the following: a set of abilities created for the theme (either a racial or a set of abilities like Salaman Ingen.) other abilities expanded to work with the theme mechanics that are also given to other runes (in the case of Salaman, the Provision: X expansion, and in the case of Minotaur, the Portal X line of abilities) buffs to existing runes in the theme reworks to underplayed existing runes to support the theme At the same time, expect continued smaller scale stuff like Poison Fang to Acid Fang and adding of clauses to non-champion runes (such as Murder) to continue to expand on these ideas, as well as minor updates/buffs to underplayed runes. Bugs Bug fixing has been a personal priority of mine and I hope you have all noticed the fruits of that labor. While I am not a programmer, I have been able to fix a lot of bugs myself while programmers have been busy with the new client. Hopefully, once the new client is completed we can get some programmer time back on bug fixing, but at the same time, there's a backlog of other improvements to complete as well, so it's always a struggle. In an ideal world, the PS4 launch does very well and we can get more resources on PoxNora, but if not, we'll continue chugging away and improve the game incrementally. Next Patch, Mid-terms and Future Content The mid-terms are ready, but there are contractural and logistical concerns with regards to the new client and timing. It's unclear right now what's going to happen with the mid-terms and when, but they will be released at some point. It's possible that the PS4 launch and EXP 30 happens first, and then these mid-terms will become the EXP 30 midterms, with the Player Expansion mid-terms punted to later, but it could happen also differently as well. Suffice to say that content is still being developed As for next patch, I don't have a date for you, it really hinges on the new client development at this point. There is a lot of stuff ready to go for it, including numerous bug fixes (Pilfered Armory, for example, @OriginalG1) and balance updates (Medal of Valor nerf, etc.). As always, I want to patch ASAP, but reality of development and other things ties my hands at this point. The Crate has a lot of information on these, but not all of it is up to date either, and I apologize for that, it is hard to keep everything/everyone updated while also making sure the work is done, but in general, if something is on the list to be buffed/nerfed, it will happen.
thanks sok. orig1 is right, maybe this game isnt perfect, and has a lot of work to be done, but we really can see how much you guys care about it and want us to enjoy a full product.
Thanks for info, i like that you are keep working on consolidating abilities and cleaning up, even though billions of different abilities looks cool, it can get messy. Wonder how many types of dodge or fear there is, if a champ is immune to fear, its not immune to horror/dread.
awesome dev and community interactions! keep em coming but: >>The new client is coming along slowly. Thats maybe because the 4 owls devs are working on 2 games now? i dont know how to feel about that.
as they previously said, dog have different teams for each game, so it shouldnt be this that slows the developement.
Oh bummer, I thought this was a thread saying: "yeah, we decided to implement Pox 2.0". Shame. Keep up the good work, though!
Well, I've come to the conclusion that the only way to save Pox is to release a newer, more refined and less complex (complexity in this case attached to number of interactions/abilities in existance) version of the game. Essenciaty, what I would hope for is having the same gameplay and structure of the game (cards that you deploy on the battlefield, ultimate goal is to blow up opponents shrine, requiring AP/nora to do so), but with a new package onto it. So, you'd release a new client with updated graphics/sprites, but you would leave the core mechanics intact. However, so we can really get a feel of a "new game", it would require a cataclysm type of event, in which all old runes would be scrapped and we would have to start our collection from nothing (well, maybe you could give away the "core collection" to veterans, but that would be about it). That would allow not only for a rotation set to be implemented, but also to start from 0 with the model we already have for pricing abilities, stats, etc. Not to mention, design space would be huuuuuuge again. Of course people would have to part from their collection, but if the game is not profitable anymore they will have to either way. I know this has a bazillion issues behind it and it would be a tough call and tougher implementation, but I firmly believe this is the only route to take in the near future, specially considering I dont think releasing Pox on that PS4 will do much - kids who play Playstation wont be too interested in a game that looks from the 70's. Either way, I dont think Pox 2 is feasible atm, but I sure hope it's the path we take in the near future. Edit: this is coming from a guy who has put money in this game, so I feel the pain of letting the runes go - but I do think it's for the greater good.
Technically, releasing a new game isn't really saving Pox. It just means a new game. Almost no company does the thing people constantly talk about when it comes to Pox 2.0 which is to keep everything but update graphics, etc. - there's really no good reason to do this. We'd just do a new game. We might re-use the rune art and the lore, and certainly if we brand it as Pox 2.0 it'd have similarities in gameplay, but for all intents and purposes it'd be a new game. And actually, I am not even sure what "saving" Pox even means. People have this idea that Pox is a failed game that needs "saving" but the reality is that it's been a fairly successful product that's produced a lot of revenue and content and many hours of enjoyment for many people over the years. Of course, eventually it'll be time to sunset it, but in the meantime, if Sony is interested in investing in the product and asked DOG to bring it to PS4... why say no? Ultimately, if DOG wants to make a new game in the same arena, they can, but it'll be less about Pox and more about whether such a decision makes sense for the studio as a business and what the team wants to do in the future. (One thing to note is that while there are many new card/tactics games of late, most haven't been doing all that well. A few have either shut down or will be shutting down soon after just a few years. Honestly, this is not an easy space to succeed in.)
Actually, for those who think Pox 2.0 can "save" or should be designed to "save" Pox, can you explain what you mean by save? What, specifically, are you hoping is saved? It seems to me it's largely just about wanting to have this type of game around - which is a fine sentiment. But when people started not to play other games, I don't really hear people, "Oh, they should make <Game> 2 to save <Game>!" This particular terminology seems to be unique to Pox, which is pretty interesting to me. (I don't want this to come across as criticism, I am just curious about the use of the terminology.)
they tried to remake pox with 3d graphics already once. was ok, didn't do well though for many reasons i suspect, but to me I hated the 3d graphics, most of the units looked far too similar and it all felt slower, everything moved slower, it loaded slower, it took longer to change decks, every things felt sluggish
For me "saving" Poxnora would mean having 100 players at ranked game anytime. I haven't been playing in the last two years for other reasons (kids and work), and I am considering playing some match once in a while again, but the number of players is just too low.
I dunno, they remade civilisation 6 times now and mostly kept the core mechanics the same. Total War the same. I'm not saying this is normal (obviously, you know the industry a lot better than me), but it's not such an unusual thing for a game to be given a cosmetic makeover, a few novelty mechanics, and rereleased to a new generation. I'm not sure how this would work with pox, we don't have the reliable fan base or media attention those games have. It doesn't seem like pox 2 would be a guaranteed success given that most of those who know it from the glory days are probably in their 30s now.
but they did need to make it, surely? But I take your point, it may be because of the way pox, and many other games, have either moved to a model of continuous added content or at least a series of expansion packs, that people feel that their favourite game is more malleable than in the past, and they have a 'right' to continuity. I also blame films moving to lazy series and remakes.
