Greetings Sentinels. This is Director Sugiyama.
Thank you so much for sending in all your comments and opinions about the game since Ver.1.1.0 was released a few days ago. Today I would like to talk about our plans regarding the main areas of feedback we have been receiving.
Equipment Power Cap
Many players have mentioned that the maximum power level for new equipment made available with the latest update differs from that of player’s pre-existing equipment prior to the update.
Players are dissatisfied with how this can render their favored weapons and armor that they have been using obsolete, or how they might have wasted materials and Conches that they had poured into improving their gear. I am very sorry for these outcomes and wish to apologize for our lack of consideration towards the players and failing to offer a sufficient explanation.
To give a bit more information about the game specifications, the maximum power cap on a piece of equipment is decided by the player’s power value at the point when it was obtained, so the cap on something picked up once a player’s power has increased after the update will be higher than the cap on something acquired before then.
There were two deciding factors for why we set the specifications this way. The first is that we needed a system where things could be swapped around fairly loosely when we make adjustments to correct the overall direction of equipment capabilities as part of the long-term game cycle. The second was a desire by both the development and operations teams from the perspective of the ongoing live service, to let players enjoy continuously changing trends by using new equipment.
◆ Our Future Policy
We are currently creating an environment where it will be possible to update your weapons and armor, so that players can keep using a single piece of equipment. This is now our recommended approach and involves the introduction of an option to combine power levels at the forge, as well as other mechanics. On top of continuing to look at and adjust the lifespan of equipment based on both previous and future feedback, we are also aware of the issues with how long it takes to check the power limits of different gear and are working to solve that problem too.
The operations team is also looking into improving how weapons and armor are released in the future, based on the relative popularity of previously available items.
*For your reference, here is a chart showing the sliding power cap applied to new equipment based on the player’s current power level when it is obtained.
Player power when obtained: 1 to 50 = Equipment power cap: 150
Player power when obtained: 51 to 150 = Equipment power cap: 200
Player power when obtained: 151 to 200 = Equipment power cap: 300
Critical Hit Rates
We have also received numerous comments about Critical Hit rates being modified down. This issue was not a deliberate change to tone down critical-based equipment for being too powerful, but actually arose from a bug in the process relating to how Critical Hit rates were calculated. Unfortunately, fixing that bug created an effect identical to if we had just lowered the ratio.
From our player data we are aware that character builds centred on the Critical Hit mechanics are extremely popular and wish to apologize sincerely for the disappointment caused by the feel of these kinds of builds changing drastically.
To give some more specific details of the bug, a situation was occurring where various additional enchantments made it easy to guarantee Critical Hits, even at lower-level brackets.
If the bug was waived and this state accepted as how the system should function then not only would it effectively make the advantages of building up your critical effect level meaningless, but it would also ensure that builds which guarantee critical hits dominated the metagame. This would then lead to further problems that could shorten the lifespan of the live service, by reducing the scope of the play experience to be very narrow and making balancing the game incredibly difficult. Accordingly, we made the decision to fix this bug.
◆ Our Future Policy
As we mentioned in our live broadcast a few days ago, the core policy for ongoing content tweaks in BABYLON’S FALL will stay unchanged in terms of having game balance based on upward adjustments rather than reductions. This applies for the critical rate issue too, and we will be adjusting the rate up in future updates. One other area we have received feedback on is differentiating the characteristics of each weapon type, and we will continue to make further adjustments here too, in line with our guiding principle of creating a play environment with a wide variety of valid play styles. Please be patient as we work to improve all these areas.
Thank you for supporting BABYLON’S FALL.
Director Takahisa Sugiygama
PlatinumGames
This article is a repost of an article posted on Hanging Garden, a community site dedicated to Babylon’s Fall players, where you can find the latest information about Babylon’s Fall. For more information, please visit Hanging Garden (https://hanging-garden.babylonsfall.com/?lang=en-us).