Why we changed Fate, and the future of content

16

In the recent update we have changed Fate rewards from missions drastically: Fate is now rewarded based on Power Rating difference. The base reward is 2 Fate, and every 50 Power Rating difference gives +1 Fate.

First of all, sorry for the huge balance variances between updates, this was not how we planned this. Usually, as you have experienced it previously, we follow the methodology of balancing stuff with an outcome that is a bit on the hard/difficult side, and then ease it down gradually on the difficulty scale (instead of jumping between easy-hard, using the averages).

The drastic change of Fate rewards was due to the fact that the previous reward amounts (20+ Fate per mission) were due to a bug.

What we can proimise is to raise the amount of Fate rewarded from quests. The bad news is that we will not restore the previous (bugged) state where players could gain 20-30 Fate per mission. We will also have to leave the daily Fate limit at a logical value.

Why do we need this?

To answer this, we'll have to go back to the basics - what is Martyr after all?

As it is somewhat clear even during this alpha, Martyr is not your classic ARPG. It is a game that retains the base elements of an ARPG, but there are a lot of other genres mixed in as well. You can see the tactical elements of the game already, but the story mode that comes later won't be at the same complexity level as an average ARPG either.

Our goal is the following:

There will be a base, single-player oriented, story based campaign. You can breeze through it in 10+ hours, but doing all the main/side investigations will take ~20 hours for an average player.

Following this story mode comes the "endgame" which will have a much greater emphasis in Martyr than an usual NewGame+.

It will be more complex and multi-layered, and here is where the interesting part begins. We will nurture this part of the game with content updates for at least two years. And this does not mean a DLC per six months, oh no.

There will  be two huge expansions with new storylines, enemy factions, and classes (!). These will be big, paid updates, we are planning on introducing one per year.

Besides these, there will also be smaller DLCs, mainly based on loot and smaller storyarcs. They will be cheap, and you will be able to buy these for Fate too, not just cash - you won't have to give us your money for these… your Fate will suffice :P

And last but not least: in the upcoming 2 years (or 3, if enough of you guys will be interested), there will be seasons. Every year will have 3 seasons, opening up new subsectors, introducing new enemy units, new types of loot, and allowing for more character progress - sometimes unlocking new game features, too! Seasons will all have a core story theme, and this will include new investigations and global events.

And, good news is that of course, Seasons will be completely free. Bad news is that we need time to make them.

Leveling

This is why we planned Martyr to have a complex leveling system, preferable for both hardcore and casual players. This is why we have divided up leveling into multiple layers.

There are the basic leveling systems (Inquisitor Rank/Account Level) - we have to keep these between soft and hard limits, because otherwise we wouldn't be ready with the upcoming content updates. However fast we are, some of you guys will definitely be faster and will reach the hard limit before we are ready to ship the content update, this we are absolutely sure of :)

Inquisitor Ranks can only be gained from story missions and Tarot Missions - and the latter one needs Fate.

Our goal with the first, current subsector is to have a limit of Acc/Inq. Level limit of 40-50 (soft and hard limits, respectively). After the full game release (Q1 2018), we open up the first big Season with the second Subsector. Following this, we will release a new Season approximately every 3 months.

From all this, you can probably guess why we needed to tone down Fate farming - either all HC players rush forward and then does nothing at the end of a tier for a month until we are ready (disrupting our plans with story difficulty, global events, etc.), or we implement a multi-step hard limit into the game (Solar System unlocks), or we stick to the change that we made now.

We feel the latter solution to be the least intrusive, and we hope that you agree. Even more so as we plan to implement a bunch of secondary objectives to the game for the hardcore playerbase. And if you have read this far, you are indeed one of them.

When you are done with the dailies and farmed all the Fate, new challenges will appear. This will have some effect on the base leveling system, meaning that HC players will have an advantage before casual players, but this is not the main aspect of these challenges.

  • One of these challenges is the Protector challenge, where players can max out the influence of a solar system, becoming the Protector of said solar system, gaining some awesome rewards.
  • Another similar mechanic is the Glory system that rewards players not only after reaching a milestone on the Glory bar, but after reaching the top 50,10, or 1 rank on the Leaderboard.
  • An additional system is the Endless Arena. These will be located around the end of a Tier, with strong enemies, strong loot, and a separate leaderboard.
  • Farming Faction Reputations, reaching either end of the Morality Chart, and some Heroic Deeds won't be for the faint of heart, either.
  • Every couple weeks there will be global events with their own leaderboards and reward system.
  • And finally, there will be an ultimate challenge, the Hall of Fame. This is a special leaderboard. To even be able to gain points for this leaderboard, you will have to be one of the best, doing Glory, Protector, Events, and all sorts of endgame stuff. The rewards will be glorious - skins, ranks, titles, emotes, free DLCs, and expansion content will be rewarded, depending on where you'll be placed on this leaderboard.

We hope this looks promising and that you'll understand why we made this change.

The Emperor Protects.

Update: You won't be able to buy Fate for cash. We will never be pay to win.

This post was edited 6 years 96 days ago by Megapull
16 comments
6 years 174 days ago
+2
6 years 177 days ago

Do you guys all forget that you also get fate by doing your personal directives (=dailies)?

6 years 177 days ago

since fate is changed to small amounts are you guys going to change the cost of tarrot missions and crafting upgrades 

6 years 178 days ago
-1
Peredur

Everybody should be happy that they have a plan for the coming years. When i remember my start with WoW and how discusted i was i REALY like devs who have a plan and calculate some numbers right. My main concern is still the testing of the fate gain without another good option for char rank up because the quest and story content is still missing. If the Devs would say "No problem, story content will be there with the next update!" i would be totaly fine but i see problems like in (for example) wildstar. I leveled and leveled and there was still a buggy main quest and i had to "wait" 7 days untill i could do my main missions because the support needed tu unstuck my char. That bug was known since early beta. The Roadmap shows that there is not much time to test things and i dont count in full product testing before launch.

@MEGAPULL‍  is there an eta for story content? I hope im blind or something because i find nothing on that topic.

6 years 178 days ago
-2

I feel like it was way too soon to unveil the plans for that many expansions and DLCs that will need to be bought.

The game is not cheap with a quite high price tag -- and we could even say expensive in regard of the current content. But we already know we will have to pay again soon after the release to complete the content of the game.

Too many things to buy, too soon after a still far away release, it doesn't make people want to invest -- money or time -- in an incomplete game -- incomplete now or at release. :s


It may help -- or make it worse -- to know how fast the first paying DLC will be coming after release, the kind of content it will include, if it will be mandatory, and the targeted price tag.

6 years 178 days ago
+1

Bottom line: We do all this to avoid the game to become a grindfest. Leveling is slow at the moment due to a bug, and we will address that ASAP.

6 years 179 days ago
+1
Megapull

Ty.


I suppose it will be re-balanced in the future.  Atm feels like ages to get enough fate to progress past lvl40+.



Edit. Oh my.... just read the steam thread for this matter. I have no envy of your work Megapull. Steam forums can be... hostile

This comment was edited 6 years 179 days ago by Kaskeria
6 years 179 days ago
+4
You won't be able to buy Fate for cash. We will never be pay to win.
6 years 179 days ago

I have mixed feelings on this. I've been around the block a time or two and know this can go one of two directions (what I mean by that is that I've played and play tested a lot of games in my lifetime starting with the grand-daddy of them all, Pong). 


I am encouraged by the promise of new content every few months. I'm encouraged by the plans and direction at this time. I'm understanding of the need to bring out a nerf bat on the volumes of Fate that could be acquired. Being of limited income, I'm even encouraged that you are looking into using Fate as an ingame currency for future content. I also see where this is going with the lowering of Fate to make people grind more missions in a planetary system before moving on to the next, thus also upping influence and slowing down blowing through the full game in a few hours (honestly, who doesn't feel cheated if you can "beat" the game in under 16 hours after spending full price). 


I'm discouraged that this can also be just a step to a pay to win scenario that several have voiced they are worried about. I'm kinda shocked at the drastic slash to the percent of Fate ( I felt perhaps 1/2 at higher planetary systems,  but 90% does feel like a bit much. Perhaps that may be revisited during balancing). I'm a bit worried that this looks like a temptation to go the "if you want to move past point a) (let's say level 20) you have to either give us the game price every three months or quit the game" after calculating how much money I payed out on subscription based games over the years. I also feel like rewarding 50 out of thousands of players (and here is to hoping it is more like millions of players) may be a bit discouraging for many (it may be better to look at top 10 get special prize and then lower prizes for  top 10, 20, 50 percentile). 


I understand where the intentions are, just have seen many games with decent game  play and  good intentions fall prey to temptations that have led to their own destruction at early (first couple years) stages. I also understand that developers have bills too and it takes real money to continuously produce content, but I also know that (at least in the Americas) very few here support games that truly become P2W. 

6 years 179 days ago
+3

Can we get an official response regarding cash payments for fate (and that it's not being included) just because the steam - paranoia train is going ham and someone needs to hit the breaks on that. 

6 years 179 days ago
-4

Sounds like a cash grab with washed down game mechanics with the plan to grab more cash in the future. Im totaly sad and have the feeling that i wasted my money. Hopefully im wrong and things get good again.

6 years 179 days ago
+2

2 or 3 years....We must have at least TEN !!! And then Inquisitor Martyr 2......The Emperor's work is never done !



6 years 179 days ago

REALLY hope this is not a previous step before fate monetization. 


Are you planning on changing the weapon unlock lvls? With this new rate on fate gain, unlocking all the weapons gonna take some serious time.

6 years 180 days ago

This i found to be an interesting read indeed. 

Kudos to you for a well thought out clear and concise answer on this particular topic. I can see firm logic for the long term in this decision and the outlined plans (more i'm sure are planned, can't give us all the spicy leaks) do indeed look uber promising.

I seem to member fate being at a similar level to the now changed (fixed bug) pre patch 6.0 EA it was maybe a tad higher in the gains department but not by much. All in all for the longevity of this so far Glorious title a huge thumbs up from myself. (I'll Salt my fate gain wounds with some PvP)  

Good Hunting Inquisitors.

6 years 180 days ago

Imagining all the works need to bring new contents ever 3 months, are you guys even considering a rest, XD

6 years 180 days ago
+3

Sounds very promising to me :)