03-15-2023, 02:24 PM
Buckle up, this is a long post.
Shaking things up
The next seasonal shakes up the typical FRG Seasonal formula. Normally, a seasonal update contains a new device, new 'shard' type item to use in the device, a new gift package type 'reward', the new main seasonal crate, and the 'crate within a crate' (christmas crackers, plastic eggs, etc).
This is a great formula, and was forged over the years by new innovations and community feedback, it worked well. But... without varying from it too much for the last ~4 years, the normal loop has grown quite stale. Before I continue, I think it's important to discuss what happened with Christmas.
The Christmas blunder
With Christmas, I tried to combat this a bit by introducing the Christmas Spirit bar, seasonal tasks, and more server-wide rewards. This was cool, most were received well, but we saw an overabundance of the main present, which in turn caused a lot of people to not need to buy any presents with coins. Seasonals are usually a great economic time for our community, as there's a need for coins to open the main series, so it gets coins circulating and flowing while removing them from the system as well.
This results in much higher trading activity than normal, and generally just makes coins feel better to have.
When you don't have to spend coins to mass open the new series, this structure collapses. So, what went wrong?
Presents were being rewarded at a much, much higher rate than prior seasonals. I caught it too late unfortunately, so the damage was done. When I fixed one portion of it, lots of people felt under rewarded, which is not what I want to happen at all.
I also focused a lot more on making this present cooler than prior ones, which in turn made the pass suffer a bit as well and feel generally less re-playable. The pass was also the easiest to level by far due to the new tasks, and primeval coins. This all just led to there being 80 concurrent players, but only ~10 on TTT while the rest were afk opening presents because they had already flown through their pass and accumulated 10s of thousands of presents during that short time.
You might be thinking that straying from the formula is risky, well typically it isn't. Every feature we have during a seasonal resulted from some variant of a previous system that in of itself at one point was a brand new introduction to a seasonal. The pass for instance stems directly from the original "Abyssal Energy" system. Prior to that we had no seasonal passes, just a new crate, minigame, and sometimes a quest or boss fight.
I LOVE trying new things, new systems, and new mechanics. I have started to dread working on seasonals entirely because I have fallen into a pattern. I know what I have to do, despite having to make all new items. It has just become very dull for someone like me who likes to branch out creatively and try new things. I rarely let risk stop me from trying new things. Christmas was the first seasonal in all of FRG's life that I feel I've blundered. I wasted a good opportunity to gauge all these new systems because of some minor reward balancing mistakes.
The Road Ahead
Where does that leave us for the future?
Well, I started evaluating the issues from the prior seasonal, how to remedy them, then the issues that arise from potential fixes. You see, the main solution to the main issue last seasonal was to lower the amount of presents players obtained without spending coins. Pretty obvious, right? But that can feel bad when the bulk of the rewards you get without spending coins aren't that interesting. Making players feel under rewarded for their time. That is no good.
Then I looked at the typical loop from a player, all of the different UI's they have to go through, the devices they have to manage, the 'gift package' type items they have to deal with, how the "shards" feel meh, and how getting a base tier 20 item feels for the 3rd time. The baseline reward for playing should feel better, more like you're working towards something. It shouldn't just be a vessel to obtain the primary seasonal crate.
All of these things were considered when I decided on what changes I would be making to the seasonal. I wont be going into specific details about a lot of the core changes(though I may hint at some as the update approaches launch), to keep things more exciting when it launches, but I am excited to work on a seasonal for the first time in years. It's been great, progress has been very good, and there's really good suggestions this year from the community too!
I will end this by saying I just thought I should give you guys a heads up on things potentially changing, so you're just a little more aware and potentially more accepting of the upcoming changes. Oh also: There will not be any godlike or exotic pass rewards for this seasonal pass. They will instead be primordial (tier 20 will have some visual stuff to make it feel more special still), as a result the soft xp cap will be removed.
Shaking things up
The next seasonal shakes up the typical FRG Seasonal formula. Normally, a seasonal update contains a new device, new 'shard' type item to use in the device, a new gift package type 'reward', the new main seasonal crate, and the 'crate within a crate' (christmas crackers, plastic eggs, etc).
This is a great formula, and was forged over the years by new innovations and community feedback, it worked well. But... without varying from it too much for the last ~4 years, the normal loop has grown quite stale. Before I continue, I think it's important to discuss what happened with Christmas.
The Christmas blunder
With Christmas, I tried to combat this a bit by introducing the Christmas Spirit bar, seasonal tasks, and more server-wide rewards. This was cool, most were received well, but we saw an overabundance of the main present, which in turn caused a lot of people to not need to buy any presents with coins. Seasonals are usually a great economic time for our community, as there's a need for coins to open the main series, so it gets coins circulating and flowing while removing them from the system as well.
This results in much higher trading activity than normal, and generally just makes coins feel better to have.
When you don't have to spend coins to mass open the new series, this structure collapses. So, what went wrong?
Presents were being rewarded at a much, much higher rate than prior seasonals. I caught it too late unfortunately, so the damage was done. When I fixed one portion of it, lots of people felt under rewarded, which is not what I want to happen at all.
I also focused a lot more on making this present cooler than prior ones, which in turn made the pass suffer a bit as well and feel generally less re-playable. The pass was also the easiest to level by far due to the new tasks, and primeval coins. This all just led to there being 80 concurrent players, but only ~10 on TTT while the rest were afk opening presents because they had already flown through their pass and accumulated 10s of thousands of presents during that short time.
You might be thinking that straying from the formula is risky, well typically it isn't. Every feature we have during a seasonal resulted from some variant of a previous system that in of itself at one point was a brand new introduction to a seasonal. The pass for instance stems directly from the original "Abyssal Energy" system. Prior to that we had no seasonal passes, just a new crate, minigame, and sometimes a quest or boss fight.
I LOVE trying new things, new systems, and new mechanics. I have started to dread working on seasonals entirely because I have fallen into a pattern. I know what I have to do, despite having to make all new items. It has just become very dull for someone like me who likes to branch out creatively and try new things. I rarely let risk stop me from trying new things. Christmas was the first seasonal in all of FRG's life that I feel I've blundered. I wasted a good opportunity to gauge all these new systems because of some minor reward balancing mistakes.
The Road Ahead
Where does that leave us for the future?
Well, I started evaluating the issues from the prior seasonal, how to remedy them, then the issues that arise from potential fixes. You see, the main solution to the main issue last seasonal was to lower the amount of presents players obtained without spending coins. Pretty obvious, right? But that can feel bad when the bulk of the rewards you get without spending coins aren't that interesting. Making players feel under rewarded for their time. That is no good.
Then I looked at the typical loop from a player, all of the different UI's they have to go through, the devices they have to manage, the 'gift package' type items they have to deal with, how the "shards" feel meh, and how getting a base tier 20 item feels for the 3rd time. The baseline reward for playing should feel better, more like you're working towards something. It shouldn't just be a vessel to obtain the primary seasonal crate.
All of these things were considered when I decided on what changes I would be making to the seasonal. I wont be going into specific details about a lot of the core changes(though I may hint at some as the update approaches launch), to keep things more exciting when it launches, but I am excited to work on a seasonal for the first time in years. It's been great, progress has been very good, and there's really good suggestions this year from the community too!
I will end this by saying I just thought I should give you guys a heads up on things potentially changing, so you're just a little more aware and potentially more accepting of the upcoming changes. Oh also: There will not be any godlike or exotic pass rewards for this seasonal pass. They will instead be primordial (tier 20 will have some visual stuff to make it feel more special still), as a result the soft xp cap will be removed.
x4
x1
