(Almost) One Month In! Upcoming focus on getting the balance right

Hey folks! It's been just about a month since Erenshor launched and honestly it still doesn't feel real. To date, Erenshor has received over 800 "Very Positive" reviews - which indie games live and die by, and honestly I can't even express how incredible this has all been.

Updates have been slow this past week as I've been at PAX and got to meet a ton of you guys which was super cool - we have an incredible community here, and that holds true in person too.

I've spent a lot of time looking at some achievement analytics, watching streamers play, reading comments on the forums, and I thought that laying out a little 'short term roadmap' would be a good way to start diving back into the project now that PAX is over. So, without further delay, and balance is on my mind in a lot of areas.

So far, I think we've had a win with community feedback leading to XP changes across all levels including boss XP bonuses - let's keep this two-way communication going, but to do that, I have to be open about my own ideas and so that's the point of this post.

And because balance is a tough subject in any game (especially if it means reductions in some areas) I feel like transparency is key, so here's a bit of a stream-of-thought post on what I'm looking into first:

Class Changes

DRUID Druids have already had a few changes: Fixes to their Heal-Over-Time spells, the addition of a higher damage spell line, and reductions to resistances on their DOT spells. There has also been some stat scaling changes over the past month. In addition to that, druids desperately need better pet summons to compete with some found items in the game.

Druids have also had some reductions to some ascension skills, their vengeful healing skill has had its proc probability reduced slightly, and it will likely be further adjusted in the near future. The reason for this is that previously, druids could simply spam-heal a target and do massive damage to their target's target. This wasn't a fun or dynamic playstyle and it encouraged druids to just spam-heal and do nothing else. Not the dynamic I was after.

Overall, druids are in a far better spot since launch, but there's room to improve.

DUELISTS Duelists are in a relatively good place right now. Their backstab skills are scaling well at level, their DPS numbers are pretty solid, and they have a lot of survivability options. Backstab has a wide range of possible damage, which I personally was aiming for, making those BIG hits feel good.

Early on Duelists had some DPS reductions as their backstab formula was changed and their offhand weapons were made to respect weapon delay.

Duelists also have some scaling issues vs high level targets where level difference is overriding stats, meaning a duelist with 800 dexterity and a duelist with 400 dexterity will do around the same DPS, which is not intended and needs addressing - but this is true for all classes.

One thing I've heard said repeatedly is that Duelists need more 'class exclusive weapons' and I agree. Itemization will change, and likely new level 1-35 content will come throughout early access and I'll explore some fun new toys for them there.

ARCANIST I honestly love where Arcanists are at. I think they're the best-balanaced class at the moment and are just about where I want them to be.

Arcanists need some tools to deal with large pulls, such as some potential utility spells. Top of mind is an AE stun spell to allow Arcanists to control a situation involving large pulls, and some avenues to quickly reset their cooldowns in order to give the spell rotation some flare.

I'd also like to introduce some charm options for Arcanists that tie procs into their spells, such as a small chance to stun on any cast, or a small chance to lifesteal or mana steal on any cast.

Speaking of Mana, Arcanists need a method to restore their own mana since that responsibility was handed to duelists. I'm not sure exactly how this will look yet, whether its a consumable item or an ability.

Some early changes to resist scaling has ensured they are strong on the DPS charts, and while SimPlayer arcanists need some help learning their spell rotations, I think in the hands of a good player, Arcanists are absolutely lethal.

PALADINS Paladins are very overpowered at the moment. At max level / max ascension they often sit near the top of DPS charts while also being monstrously tanky.

I want to find a way to give paladins some options, including allowing for DPS-focused builds around 2-handed weapons at the expense of their tanking ability. Introducing more 2H-focused skills is a priority for Paladins, in order to give them the option to be DPS-focused for XP grinding while having the option to switch to tank-mode for bosses.

Some of their ascension skills may need to be scaled down slightly to bring them in-line with where their maxed-out DPS should be, but the goal is not to gut them, its to allow the player to consciously switch modes while leaving both modes intact - just not simultaneously.

SKILLS There are some problems with skills - specifically BLOCK and DODGE.

Block and Dodge both are a 100% mitigation skill from the moment you get it, and it doesn't matter if your attacker is 3 levels below you or 20 ahead of you, you can mitigate entire hits just by having the skill at no cost to anything else. The only requirement is that the target is in front of you.

Currently, it's more efficient to pull 6-7 mobs on your paladin and leave arcanists / crowd control out of your group and let the paladin's mitigation handle the situation. This isn't ideal, and removes an entire mechanic from the game (crowd control)

Block and Dodge work the same for every class, which is also not optimal. Likely, Block and Dodge will be split into tiers of skill, so you'll find Block I, Block II, Block III, Block IV books, with Paladins being able to use all tiers, and other classes being locked out of the higher tiers of the skill - setting Paladins apart as the ideal tank.

Currently, Block and Dodge leave little room for expansion and makes balancing tricky. I am considering a few potential avenues to fix this in addition to the skill tiers - so far my brainstorming has lead me to some ideas:

• Cooldowns on the abilities - Block and Dodge can only proc so often. This opens up paths for cooldown reduction later on.

• Block and / or Dodge work only on the being you have targeted. This makes a Paladin extremely effective at tanking bosses, while still making Arcanists (or other future CC classes) necessary for larger pulls.

• Shields have a % block visible stat on them, so you'll have to decide on your equipment and its effectiveness at blocking. E.g. One shield might block 15% of damage on proc, while another blocks 50%.

ENDGAME BALANCE Sivakruxes are a pain point for a lot of folks, I get it. Planar stones are in high supply but you're locked out of upgrades by Sivakruxes. This is admittedly a very incomplete mechanic, and I'm looking at tuning it in more here.

• Sivakruxes will become much more common in the near future through treasure maps - which will also become much more common through a few avenues such as: fishing, rare wandering vendors, and overall loot drop rates.

• Planar stones will become exceedingly rare for now. Keep in mind that in 1.0, players will not be soft-stuck at Astra and Demented, they'll be looking to progress into raids. "Purpling" all of your gear prior to those encounters will not be necessary nor the common path for players. You guys are welcome to do it now, for lack of other things to do, but keep this in mind as you do it.

• Raids will introduce more common sources to get Planar Stones (since they'll take place in the planes), and Raid Gear will have its own, alternate upgrade paths as well which will also include Planar Stones.

Keep in mind that by grinding yourself into full purple gear, you may trivialize some early raid content. This won't be a huge deal, but raid content is going to pick up at approximately "Astra" level of difficulty. I don't want you guys to stop playing, but time may be better spent gearing up some other SimPlayers so you have a full raid force ready to go, rather than full-purpling yourself.

Treasure Map balance is still a work in progress in general, and its loot table will increase to make them continuously interesting to do. They are in a very 'placeholder' state for now.

SIMPLAYERS SimPlayers need to be smarter about handling their Aggro. Especially for Druid players who are at the mercy of SimPlayers playing Tank + DPS roles, things can go south very fast. This adjustment is coming.

SimPlayers need to be able to use active items including food. HOWEVER, this will mean that items that summon pets are going to be too strong. Adding 3 more summoned Malaroths to an XP group will cause massive trivialization to many areas, and so it's likely those summons will be reduced in effectiveness, either across the board, or depending on how many are active at once in the area. They will still be fantastic toys to give to your alt characters though.

SimPlayers are also still occasionally wandering off or falling off of the navmesh and getting stuck. This is a "most wanted bug" at the moment. If you find a reliable method to recreate SimPlayers getting stuck, please DM me in discord - we'll do something fun for the first person who comes up with a reliable method to reproduce this so I can do it in an editing environment and see what's happening exactly.

OTHER UPCOMING CHANGES: Fishing rework or tweaks (possibly making a mini game out of it?) Auction House Rework Tiered tools for Fishing and Mining Getting the first bit of 35+ content in game (end of the quest that leaves you back on Stowaway's Step)

This is not by any means the full plan, or a definite plan. This is where I'm at on brainstorming and I absolutely value community feedback. So let's have a chat.

Obviously, throughout all of this, I will continue to prioritize bugs and other issues with the game. By getting this balance right now, I can keep the door open for new classes and content - both of which I greatly look forward to adding.

Thank you all for being a part of the Erenshor community!