Update log
Full Forsaken Realms: Vahrin's Call update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Repeated intro
Greetings mercs!
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- Store
Hope you're all having a lovely Monday morning/afternoon/evening, wherever you might be out there in the big wide world.
As per usual, it's been a busy month for the Titan Roc team. Everyone has been hard at work fine tuning the gameplay experience of Vahrin's Call, bringing it up to the standard that both you and we have come to expect. Let's dive in to see what's been happening throughout March!
Dev Playtesting
Towards the beginning of March, everyone on the team took a week to sit down and play through Vahrin's Call from start to finish. The main objective was for each of us to clear the main story, with a secondary objective of clearing all the side quests and unlocking all the achievements.
The overarching goal though was of course to obtain as much feedback as we possibly could on the current state of the game. With a range of devs trawling through Vahrin's depths, experimenting with different playstyles, we were hoping to gain some new insight on what areas of the game were feeling fun and what areas still needed work.
And that's exactly what happened!
The playtest was a huge success, providing everyone on the team with tons of feedback for their respective areas. Our HacknPlan board quickly filled up with a plethora of suggestions that we could later discuss as a team, and potentially look into implementing in the near future.
Additionally, for some of the guys on the team, this was their first proper playthough of the game, which was fantastic news for us. Another fresh pair of eyes to provide feedback and critique is always welcome!
Since this playtest, we've been hard at work implementing many of these changes, and it's been really satisfying seeing them make their way into the game. My personal favourite are the small quality of life improvements; the little things that make the gameplay experience feel more satisfying, polished, complete and overall, fun!
For today's dev update, why don't we take a peek at some of the changes that have been making their way into the world of Leyda?
Adjustments to Collectibles
Exploring the world and discovering hidden treasure is the primary way of obtaining loot in Vahrin's Call.
Finding chests, skill books and other treasure and collectibles is a key part of the gameplay exprience, and so it's important we get it right.
With that being said, the recent playtest revealed some issues with collectibles that needed addressing. The primary problem being that many of these items were simply too difficult to find.
When placing collectibles throughout the world, we aim to keep them relatively challenging, while not requiring a magnifying glass to spot. The end goal is that you feel rewarded as a player for exploring the area and discovering the hidden treasure.
It can be easy to miss the mark on this though and end up with items that the vast majority of people never find. As we work on the game almost every single day, we can become somewhat detached from the perspective of the average player, making it hard to gauge the general difficulty of certain things.
But of course, that's where playtesting comes in!
The March playtest revealed that there were consistent patterns with the collectibles. Many devs were struggling to find a lot of the same collectibles, and so we're taking action to adjust things for the better.
How are we doing this? Well, I'm glad you asked!
There are a range of ways that we
Source