Hey all, Christian here with some more information about the upcoming patch I talked a bit about last week. If you missed it in last week’s dev blog, I talked in short about changes that will come with the next major patch and which are meant to prepare Battlerite for Free-To-Play (and complement Battlerite Lite). The three things I brought up was an updated Quest System, the introduction of Account Levels, and the new currency currently called “Gems”. In this week’s post we’ll check in again on the new player experience, as it’s also slated to arrive in the same patch, and take a closer look at what the new Quest System entails.
I just want to touch on a few things before we get going though.
As most of you know we sent out Battlerite Lite keys at the end of last week. Some were not able to verify their email address and sign up to the newsletter in time though and are asking if more keys will be sent out. The answer is basically “maybe”, but there’s nothing decided right now. In addition, someone who has gotten Battlerite Lite can only upgrade to the Early Access package by purchasing it through the in-game window in the landing page. Getting an Early Access key via for example the Humble Store will not allow a Battlerite Lite player to upgrade their account. Our ability to offer support or troubleshooting may also be very limited if a purchase of a key is not made via official re-sellers such as Steam or Humble Store.
Finally, I’m sure many of you are very curious and have lots of questions about us appearing in this video about 31 seconds in:
At the moment I can’t tell you more about it, but make sure to tune in at:
(direct link) tomorrow, June 13th at 23:55 CEST ( 5:55 PM EDT / 2:55 PM PDT), to get more details! EDIT: New time slot is June 14th, 23:35 CEST (5:35 PM EDT / 2:35 PM PDT)!
Now, let’s move on!
Let’s go on a Campaign
The Campaign’s primary purpose is to teach new players about the game, and functions as an improved and extended tutorial. But the Campaign is not just for new players – there will be special rewards given for completing it so experienced players may want to give it a shot as well! Anyway, let’s take a closer look on how it will work.
Above we have a look at the first step of the Campaign, meant to work as the new tutorial and introduction to the game for new players. This first mission is pretty similar to how the old tutorial works, but with some updates in structure and content. In the first mission on Mount Araz a new player will learn how to move around and use their basic abilities (excluding EXs and the R ability).
After fighting off waves of enemies while learning Jade’s core abilities, the second mission on Mount Araz pitches you against the mighty Tourok, who once again tests if you’ve learned how to utilize your abilities. If the player manages to defeat Tourok, they then complete the trials of Mount Araz and move on to the next arena.
In Blackstone Arena you are taught about health pickups in the game along with how the Center Orb functions. After these concepts have been introduced the challenge is then to stay alive facing an onslaught of attacks. You saw a sneak peak of this back in Dev Blog #14.
After passing this trial you will then face the first adversary who is also a regular Champion in the game: Ashka. It will be the first proper arena fight so far, but context sensitive hints will still be presented in the same manner as in the fight against Tourok.
Mission 3 takes us to Orman Temple. This is where we introduce Battlerites to the player for the first time. It’s an otherwise pretty straightforward fight against Jumong but with context sensitive hints, and after defeating him we move on to Sky Ring.
In Mission 4 we introduce energy pickups and the abilities that have an energy cost besides the ultimate. After the introduction of these concepts the challenge consists of using Jade’s EX abilities effectively to help an ally survive and defeat waves of enemies.
The gist of this challenge is that the opponents have too much health for you to be able to effectively take them out before they defeat your ally. Your buddy in the middle will one shot them, but has a long cooldown between each salvo, so using Jade’s EX abilities effectively is the key to victory. After clearing the Sky Ring challenge we move on to the final mission.
For the final mission we move on to Dragon Garden and face Raigon. This last mission is the player’s introduction to 2 vs 2 fighting, as both Jade and Raigon are joined by an ally each. After this, the Campaign is over and a new player is recommended to try out fighting against some more champions in Vs AI. Or, if they feel ready for it, try out some real PvP action.
Quests 2.0
In the revamped quests system you will not only have daily quests, but weekly and special event quests too. Additionally there are ‘Achievements’, which are like quests but are not time restricted.
Daily Quests
Daily quests have changed slightly from how they were before. We’ve gotten rid of region-based quests and replaced them with quests such as “Play 2 different Support Champions” instead. For us, regions ended up being slightly too ‘tacked-on’, forcing lore to bend in strange ways just to get more variety in the daily quest system. We’ve seen players suggesting more gameplay related quests, but we believe that quests should not interfere with how to play the game (at least to the extent that it might spoil a match for others) as much as possible.
Weekly Quests
In weekly quests you can expect things like “Play 25 Games” and “Earn 2000 Battle Coins”. The idea behind the weekly quests is that these are going to take you a little longer to achieve, especially with the extra challenge of trying to complete it before the week is over. The other great thing is you will be able to track your progress through each quest in the quest log. Each quest has its own progress bar that updates as you go!
Event Quests
Event quests are pretty much what they sound like – special quests that are available when specific events are. These enable you to earn and claim rewards around any special events we might want to release at specific times. Examples of this could be related to seasonal holidays or any Brawls we release.
Achievements
Achievements are permanent quests that are available for you to browse from Day 1. Some of the achievements will take a very long time to complete, such as “Reach Account Level 200”, but there are achievements you can complete early on as well, so as you play more Battlerite you will complete more and more achievements.
Of course this system has rewards for each quest you complete, and you can manually claim these when you are ready. Rewards are currently planned to include Silver Chests, Gold Chests, Legendary Chests, and Battle Coins but may also reward more special items in the future as well.
Wrap-Up
We hope you’re excited about this new system and looking forward to trying it out. As always, make sure to give us some feedback about the system when you finally get to experience it, as we want to ensure it’s ready and appropriate for Free-To-Play!
And that’s it for this week. Remember to keep your eyes peeled tomorrow, June 13th at 23:55 CEST ( 5:55 PM EDT / 2:55 PM PDT) for other exciting news. We’ll also continue to talk about topics that will be in the upcoming patch next week so make sure to check back then!
Thanks for reading!
/Christian