Absolver Update from Sloclap + Upcoming 1.06 Notes
Hi everyone,
The Sloclap team wanted to take a moment to assure the community that we've been reading a lot of threads on the forums in the past two weeks, but because we're a small team that's focused on improving the experience, we haven't really had the time to respond directly on the forums as much as we'd like. We figured it was high time for a fresh update on production, coming straight from the studio!
First of all, we were pretty amazed that so many people decided to buy the game, so many thanks to all of you who supported us. We know that lots of players have been having great fun with the game, but also that many others have had real issues, often due to online/network, sometimes making the game unplayable (really bad lag, or impossible to connect to servers). There were even corrupted saves issues which is probably the worst thing that can happen to a player... We'd been testing the game with a test team for over a year, and had run two closed betas, so we thought we were ready to have a quality release, but when the game launched two weeks ago there were still problems that we hadn't seen before and which created really bad issues. We're really sorry about this, and have been working tirelessly to fix as many issues as possible (we certainly haven't gone on holidays !)
Update 1.05 last Friday made things much better for a lot of players, but it actually made things worse for some others (issues such as trouble joining/staying in Combat Trials). We're actively investigating this, and will communicate regularly on our progression. It's really frustrating when you've been working like crazy on a game for almost three years, only to see that some players who like the game are having a bad experience because of technical issues, so we firmly intend to keep working hard at making the Absolver experience better and better - for everyone.
The next update is currently being tested, and will be deployed in a few days. List of gameplay updates is below - there is also going to be a pretty cool surprise given to all players who care to go through the Guidance Bridge again ! We've mentionned that in other updates to come very soon there will be a prestige system, stat reallocation, a better inventory with gear color edition, new equipment, an anticheat system, and other minor improvements. Beyond that, our short term priorities are getting more PvP content in (3v3 game mode, private 1v1 games, spectator cam...). New attacks and a new combat style are also planned, we'll give more precise ETA on all this asap.
To all players who were expecting tons of PvE content and/or a long narrative experience, sorry that you were disappointed; we tried to be clear on this when we communicated about the game, saying that even though the core of the game was PvP combat, we wanted to make a game that was about more then just fighting, but also about learning and sharing and encounters between players. The purpose of the main map (Raslan city) is to be a place where players can meet, train, learn from each other, and have original stories emerging from these encounters, not to provide a story-driven adventure: we actually developped the backstory and lore more than the actual storyline of the game, which is admittedly pretty basic ! We do have plans for additional PvE content though, and will give more information on this further down the line when the current issues and priorities have been tackled - we are a small team and can't do everything at once unfortunately !
There is is a lot more coming, and we will certainly keep reading forums and analyzing player feedback to keep improving the game, so please keep letting us know if you encounter issues or have suggestions !
Thanks again for your support,
Sloclap team
The Sloclap team wanted to take a moment to assure the community that we've been reading a lot of threads on the forums in the past two weeks, but because we're a small team that's focused on improving the experience, we haven't really had the time to respond directly on the forums as much as we'd like. We figured it was high time for a fresh update on production, coming straight from the studio!
First of all, we were pretty amazed that so many people decided to buy the game, so many thanks to all of you who supported us. We know that lots of players have been having great fun with the game, but also that many others have had real issues, often due to online/network, sometimes making the game unplayable (really bad lag, or impossible to connect to servers). There were even corrupted saves issues which is probably the worst thing that can happen to a player... We'd been testing the game with a test team for over a year, and had run two closed betas, so we thought we were ready to have a quality release, but when the game launched two weeks ago there were still problems that we hadn't seen before and which created really bad issues. We're really sorry about this, and have been working tirelessly to fix as many issues as possible (we certainly haven't gone on holidays !)
Update 1.05 last Friday made things much better for a lot of players, but it actually made things worse for some others (issues such as trouble joining/staying in Combat Trials). We're actively investigating this, and will communicate regularly on our progression. It's really frustrating when you've been working like crazy on a game for almost three years, only to see that some players who like the game are having a bad experience because of technical issues, so we firmly intend to keep working hard at making the Absolver experience better and better - for everyone.
The next update is currently being tested, and will be deployed in a few days. List of gameplay updates is below - there is also going to be a pretty cool surprise given to all players who care to go through the Guidance Bridge again ! We've mentionned that in other updates to come very soon there will be a prestige system, stat reallocation, a better inventory with gear color edition, new equipment, an anticheat system, and other minor improvements. Beyond that, our short term priorities are getting more PvP content in (3v3 game mode, private 1v1 games, spectator cam...). New attacks and a new combat style are also planned, we'll give more precise ETA on all this asap.
To all players who were expecting tons of PvE content and/or a long narrative experience, sorry that you were disappointed; we tried to be clear on this when we communicated about the game, saying that even though the core of the game was PvP combat, we wanted to make a game that was about more then just fighting, but also about learning and sharing and encounters between players. The purpose of the main map (Raslan city) is to be a place where players can meet, train, learn from each other, and have original stories emerging from these encounters, not to provide a story-driven adventure: we actually developped the backstory and lore more than the actual storyline of the game, which is admittedly pretty basic ! We do have plans for additional PvE content though, and will give more information on this further down the line when the current issues and priorities have been tackled - we are a small team and can't do everything at once unfortunately !
There is is a lot more coming, and we will certainly keep reading forums and analyzing player feedback to keep improving the game, so please keep letting us know if you encounter issues or have suggestions !
Thanks again for your support,
Sloclap team
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
PATCH 1.06 SPOILERS BELOW
(The patch is currently being tested and will be released in a couple of days; more details on bugfixes will follow very soon)Special abilities
Absorb successful· add +20 protection during 5s (can be stacked)
· increase ghost damage refill speed (x2)
· decrease stamina bonus (50 -> 20)
> Absorb was not so easy to use and required to have very fast attacks to regain quickly the damage taken. With the increase of ghost damage refill speed and the protection bonus we think that this style will be easier to use without fast attacks and corresponds more to the original fantasy of the style. Also it'll be less frustrating when you get hit after several successfull absorbs. Because of these buffs we had to lower its stamina bonus.
Avoid successful
· Decrease stamina bonus (40 -> 35) increase stamina cost 5 -> 10
· Character avoided : Decrease stamina refill (x0.3) during 1.5s
· Character avoided : Stamina malus (-10)
> Avoid was considered below the parry : 4 inputs to choose instead of 2, and a worst reward (0.4s of slowdown instead of 0.6s of freeze). The fact is that for a lot of attacks there are 3 valid choices (high thrust attacks can be avoided left, right or down for instance), it also has a small recovery compared to the parry, and it stops the tracking of the opponent's attack.
But it's true that against attacks with very small recovery the Avoid doesn't give enough time to counter-attack. So we decided to give another kind of reward : it inflicts a stamina malus on the avoided character, and also has a great stamina bonus.
In short, Windfall is now the best style for stamina management, and to exhaust your opponent.
Parry successful
· Decrease stamina bonus (30 -> 15)
> Parry has a high risk / high reward. We think that the reward to connect a medium to strong attack is enough so we decided to decrease its stamina bonus.
Stagger style
· decrease range of side special attacks (190 -> 145)
> Stagger side attacks was "spammable", by decreasing their range these attacks become more defensive than offensive.
Attacks
· Decrease range and impact on guard of fastest attacks
· Increase impact on guard of Breaking attacks
> We've seen a lot of comments about the spam goldlink. The overall idea was always to make the guard stronger than the fast attacks, we want someone who use only fast attacks to exhaust himself against the guard of his opponent.
On the other side, we don't want the players to stay in guard against breaking attacks.
1v1
· Health refill on kill now take in account the health ratio of both players at the beginning of the round
> We feel that it's more fair like that. If you start a round with small amount of health and your opponent is full life he will not have a good health refill if he kills you, but if you manage to kill him you'll get back a lot of your health.
Shockwave
· costs 2 shards
· decrease range
· add stamina bonus + boost stamina refill during 5s
> What we want with these modifications : less shockwave spam, less offensive shockwave to push you out of ring, but keep the defensive shockwave and add a tactical use of the following boost of stamina.
Others
· Increase weight/mobility impact on stamina
· Increase dodge iFrames (2 -> 4)
· Keep shards after death
>The heavy characters had not enough drawbacks.
The dodge was too much punished by horizontal attacks. With better invincible frames it's now easier to dodge attacks (but the dodge has still a very high cost in stamina).
You'll be able to keep shards after death, it gives more strategic options in 1v1 and allows you to use high cost powers/weapons more often.
Maps / Raslan
· Decreased maximum number of enemy AIs per zone
· Improved some enemy AIs detection range
· Fixed navigation issue in Oratian Quarter zone
Maps / 1v1
· Fixed out of bounds issue in Adalian Columbary arena
· Modification on the cross arena (no more central ledge)
1.How many times can it stack?
2. do stacks decay or does the 5 second timer reset with each stack?
I would not say perry is high risk high reward. High risk, yes but the reward is a low medium id say. there have been many times me and another forsaken will hit perrys 5-7 times back to back on each other. It looks as if the stun time on both people are the same amount of time (0.6 seconds)
found this steam thread that speaks my mind a lot better: http://steamcommunity.com/app/473690/discussions/0/2765630416810308505/
More of a pve guy here so i am looking forward to all those pve type updates big or small. (b^_^)b
You cant utilize the faster heal cause the only thing you can do is try to retaliate or keep being on the defense. Defense alone does not win fights, you are hit and the HP are gone faster than they recharge... Still need faster attacks to retaliate.
and the bit of extra protection is not worth the stamina loss in a style that is all about constant pressure. With current state it at least allows you to keep up relentless aggression in a way no other style can. With the changes it will be about giving you armor so you can take hits you shouldn't take in the first place, see my point above, hence why nothing will change in that regard.
In short, it destroys the styles offensive play style, it promotes a play style that does not really worked out well with the absorb mechanic and it does not address the issue with it at all.
Now, windfall will not only get most stamina advantage with the change along with an opening due to frame advantage but they will also deplete it from the enemy... New meta is basically confirmed with the patch notes. Basically you applied kahlts aggression style to windfalls already decent benefits, except you dont have to get hit...
And finally nothing was done about the fact that feint does not counter parry because you may get hit by a buffered attack before you can get out of feint frames and the windup of your own attack. You could straight up remove the stamina reward and it would still be incredibly strong due to its massive opportunity window.
Thanks for the update.
Now you are going to debuff parry even further effectively making my character useless! And windfall character are already broken and tankish and you are just fueling the fire by buffing them! You need to buff parry because the real risk is, getting utterly destroyed after a successful parry!
Fast moves can stay debuffed because getting spammed to death and stun locked from broken jabs are ridicules.
The jist is that you are punishing me for choosing parry, when in pvp the skill is useless on ps4 and needs a extra something to make it actually worth me taking the risk, maybe taking less damage (protection buff) after a successful parry or something.
you need to buffer the attack right after starting the parry instead of attack on reaction cause that is too slow ...
A single button press is work? As much 'work' as any other turn around...
This game was an amazing idea, but the quality of the soft itself... By number of discussions it's clear that players have more to say about the bugs than gameplay itself. I really hope this experience will be enhanced as soon as possible.
Absorb is for turn arounds and punishing through stamina and ignoring hit stun though, atleast that is how you can effectively utilize absorb. Plus you can still dodge.
Problem is that none of those changes really help with that and none of those changes are changing how you can utilize absorb, hence why it is a nerf.
Beside that getting benefits for when you play poor isnt a good mechanic for a pvp game anyway and that is what the changes do.
But like others Have said, I do not know how well these changes will perform in a battle. What I do know for sure is that the stamina nerf will be felt. Why? Most of the kahlt attacks are slow and costly. You will be seeing kalht disengage more often to recover stamina unless they use the faster, cheaper attacks that usually do not scale with strength (a kahlt attribute).
Now it gives you a benefit you should never use to begin with (ie don't get hit in the first place or you're playing badly - it's a pvp game ffs) a pittance of stamina and still no stun, no damage mitigation (although I guess if you use it early enough while turtling you could mitigate some damage since the heal is sped up now - but good luck turtling with no stamina now)
My point is, this is a flat nerf to Kahlt. Don't give a pvp game benefits that rely on the player not playing at their best. Raise the skill ceiling AND the skill floor. Also it stacks for 5 sec? I've only repeated absorbs maybe once or twice in an entire match and it usually ends with a chain of sweeps or jabs mixed with guard breaks the moment they think I'm going to spam absorb - which leaves me out of stamina at best and destroyed at worst.
It's not going to be worth it to play Kahlt this patch imo.
As it is if you absorb the forsaken is just going to parry for free damage and the windfall is just going to avoid and wreck any stamina you just gained - they expect the "fast attack out of absorb" which is only going to be one of 8 (more likely 4-6) moves. Don't mistake this for a buff. It's a hard-hitting nerf, and the prot "buff" is a useless mechanic in a pvp game. You're correct, but at least the 50 stamina it gave made it way easier to say, dodge and get "back into the swing" of defending until your opponent is hopefully out of stamina. The goal was to outlast, not turtle forever. Bait them into a guard break and hit them with a fast move or dodge and sweep. Or let them keep dumping stamina into you while every couple moves you get what you spent and then some if they slip up or use a move that you can absorb (ie a sweep when they think you might dodge)