June Overhaul Report #1: Better Balance & Difficulty, Better Tribesman AI

Hey, Chieftains!

As we mentioned in the 90-Day Overhaul Plan a few days ago, we'll be increasing the frequency of our dev logs to keep you updated on our optimization progress in real time.

Today, we'd like to talk about the upcoming June update, based on the results from our Public Test Branch testing:

For our June optimization schedule, we're planning two major patches—one on June 11th and one on June 26th:

In the June 11th update, we expect to prioritize the following changes:

• Difficulty & Balance

  • Redesigned the values and mechanics of certain boss skills to make overall difficulty more forgiving

  • Dungeon rebalancing to reduce unreasonable ranged enemy placement

  • All enemy AI now behaves more appropriately for their corresponding difficulty mode

  • Boss disengage timers and health regeneration rates have been optimized

  • XP multipliers have been adjusted across most modes; in single-player mode, the crafting speed multiplier can now be set up to 100x

  • Added a "Downed but Not Dead" option for Tribesmen — this will be enabled by default on some lower difficulties. When active, Tribesmen who are critically downed will not be killed by AoE damage

• Dungeon-Related

  • We've reduced the number of unreasonably placed ranged enemies across all dungeons

  • Ballista units in all enemy camps will be reduced

• Tribesmen

  • Deployed Tribesmen now have a "Hold F2" Rally to Me function, allowing Tribesmen to quickly move to the player's position

  • All Tribesmen work tasks will be more responsive

  • We've optimized the frequency at which Tribesmen repeatedly fetch materials in workshops — they'll now be far less likely to encounter pathfinding issues

For more details, check the patch notes we just released — but more importantly, here's what's coming next:

As we mentioned last time, the new single-player cross-world portal, the tutorial redesign, and HUD/UI changes still need further polish and iteration on the PTB based on your feedback. These are now planned for June 26th.

Why are we doing it this way?

Once we locked in the 90-Day Overhaul Plan, we wanted a faster way to hear your feedback— especially for content involving major reworks —and the Public Test Branch (PTB) is what we believe best serves that need.

So we deploy our optimization content to the PTB ahead of time, and based on feedback from Chieftains participating in PTB playtesting, we determine which changes are ready to go live and which still need more polish and adjustment. We make that call, then push anything that needs further work into the latter half of the month.

During those two weeks, we're not sitting idle either. We continue putting further improvements into the PTB, collecting another round of feedback from PTB players, and then deciding whether those changes are ready for the second half of the month—or whether they need to be delayed further, or even reworked from scratch. We want to make sure every optimization that goes live in Soulmask's main branch reflects the collective input of our Chieftains.

In June, Chieftains who participated in the branch testing provided us with a tremendous amount of feedback (once again, thank you so much to every Chieftain who contributed!). Here's what came up:

1. Some Chieftains found the new HUD changes uncomfortable, so we'll continue adjusting based on your feedback:

   

   • We'll further increase the priority and visibility of the stamina bar, and redesign how stamina values are displayed.

   • Some Chieftains found the debuff presentation in the new HUD confusing, so we'll make the status detail button prompts much more prominent—so you can immediately understand what's happening.

   • We'll be adding the crafting progress bar back in, so you can still keep track of your item production progress.

2. The reworked action skills were reported as being too strong —especially the whip. Its reworked initial skill had DPS and poise damage efficiency that exceeded our design intent. We'll be tuning it down to be in line with other weapons' initial skills.

3. Many Chieftains had questions about the single-player cross-map mechanic, so we need to further polish this new feature before release.

4. Some skill descriptions and translations are being reworked.

Please note that these changes will still be added to the PTB soon and will continue to be available for your playtesting and feedback. We've now set up a real-time feedback and rating survey in our PTB Discord channel, and we warmly welcome every Chieftain participating in PTB playtesting to share your evaluation of our changes!

This is our first time trying this kind of early deployment and iterative adjustment process. We hope it's not too late, and we hope this approach can genuinely push Soulmask's quality forward. Going forward, our PTB will remain open, and before each new version update, we'll give you early access to our latest changes and collect your firsthand feedback.

If you'd like to participate in PTB testing, simply head to the announcements section in the Soulmask Discord, click the reaction to join, and you'll gain access to our PTB feedback channel!

See you soon — we'll be sharing more of our optimization progress in the second half of the month!