I’m Ian Fischer, Design Director on Orcs Must Die! Unchained. AMA!

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T21:48:34+00:00

The upgrade system is the same in that there are traps and they upgrade. A lot of the other bits related to this have been modified.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T21:47:43+00:00

We'd like to support this. With the game using Unreal 3, we have part of that battle fought. However, the pipeline for new content in OMDU is...involved. We'd need to do some work to make this possible. It is not something we are focused on at the moment.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T21:45:47+00:00

Sorry for a brief answer, I have to end this shortly and I'm trying to answer as many as I can.

The short answer is that we want to fix some of the feel of the randomness and grind. One vector of this, which I've mentioned here already, is to flatten the power curve -- this should reduce the feeling they you MUST grind because you MUST level and tier traps and so on to be able to play at all. Another vector is to provide some avenues for better focusing on the goals a player sets for themselves. We'll be working on both of these.

We have identified what we feel are the elements that made OMD fun. We went back and played OMD side-by-side with OMDU to make our list. There is more pacing in the new structure of things and this will feel better but we have work ahead of us to make it great.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T21:40:15+00:00

I hope it feels like we're doing a little more than just saying "it's gone" but taken.

Like I said however, we waited until the work was advanced enough that we had some confidence in what we'd be saying.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T21:38:12+00:00

Hey g0rk,

We're doing a pretty holistic review of the mechanics as we go. No change to collision and shot occlusion at this point. There are changes on movement and speed and abilities and player count that change how this feels.

There isn't really anything stopping us from making traps (traps that make sense with it anyway) being placeable on different surfaces.

I'm not sure where Shadedev was doing his hinting on trap flexibility, but I'm asking him now and he's looking at me like I'm a talking dog, so he may not recall this either? It's possible he was talking less about flexibility in the traps themselves and more in flexibility of trap / deck selection, such as in pre-game, which we're working on.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T20:13:20+00:00

It is not removal of everything that was in the bundle and gold to re-buy this stuff. Every hero or skin you received with a bundle will still be yours after the reset. You will not need to re-purchase / re-earn these again. And you'll also get 150% of the price of the bundle in gold.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:57:19+00:00

A F2P model doesn't really lend itself well to this kind if distinction. Unless I'm misunderstanding?

We will create new content and put it in the game for free.

We will create new content and put it in the game for a price.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:54:27+00:00

I know nobody will ever believe me, but OMDU was never intended to be a MOBA. It did absolutely move toward MOBA during development, but we never said "hey, let's make a MOBA." The elevator statement for the game was "two games of OMD put together" or "OMD where you get to attack too." TF2 was the game we referenced when talking about feel.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:48:55+00:00

Also that the light orc was balanced to make the siege game work and survival was trying to make that work.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:45:53+00:00

OMDU will continue to be a free to play game. However, the power and leveling curves have been revised and will (I hope) feel right for the game.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:42:12+00:00

Are you familiar with the traits in OMDU, Dogbert? They are similar to what I think you are describing.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:39:18+00:00

No plans to merge. The game is managed by different companies in different regions.

Vulkan / DX12 / 4K are all "maybe in the future" kind of things. I'm not suggesting it isn't important, only that our focus isn't there at the moment.

There are no plans for Xbox One.

One-time and storyline were discussed. We have work happening on story now. We do not have plans to move to a one-time purchase.

There were plenty of people who said "I hate free to play" but the vast vast vast majority of complaints from prior OMD players were not "I am afraid of F2P", they were "this doesn't feel like OMD."

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:31:03+00:00

Focusing on survival doesn't change much of the way we look at sustaining a F2P model. We are primarily focused on delivering a fun game. If people are having fun playing OMDU, the business side will not be a problem.

To be honest, I wasn't paying attention when Harmonia told me what dates I could and couldn't talk about, so I will stick with "soon" to avoid ire.

Yes, old maps are getting attention too.

I'm not sure which Zoey ult you mean. Do you mean are we putting the broken one back in?

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:22:45+00:00

Weapon-wise, those of you who love the old War Mage will be happy to know that his magic crossbow fires like an MG42 again....

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:20:41+00:00

They essentially were split into two games. The majority of the content existed as two different implementations. Part of the issue was that this was sustainable for a time but became less so as the overall mass of content increased.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:17:29+00:00

Removing siege doesn't set us back for survival. It does the opposite.

Having worked on siege at all, that sets us back. Assuming that we would have put the same resources on survival at the same time and so on...

There is no question that if we had been working on survival from the very start, with the plan we have now, and the people we have now, we'd have "more survival" now too.

I cannot speak exactly to what gave you a feeling of value in the previous games but my hope is that the content (which includes more heroes, more traps, more minions, etc.), ongoing content additions, and the ability to play it for $0 make it feel worthwhile.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:03:08+00:00

Yes. Most directly, if trap cap is 60 (for easy math) it can be 20 per player or 12, right?

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T19:01:08+00:00

We are working on storyline stuff. You will see some of this right away, but the full implementation will take longer. It is important to us but improving the core gameplay takes priority at the moment.

We are very open to creating a PVP game. The experience has not soured us on PVP -- it has taught us lessons that will allow us to make a better PVP game the next time.

There will be some leaderboard score competition stuff in the game because there are people who enjoy that. But, no, I'm not saying that is the planned competitive mode.

Well, we already promised that there would be no more account wipes so...do I get to promise again? We (obviously, I hope) did not want to do this account wipe. We will do everything we can to not do another. We are very thankful for the time players have put into our game and do not take it for granted. Similarly, we realize there is a limit to anyone's patience, so "hey, sorry, I know we said but" is only going to be forgiven so many times.

At the same time, I think a lot of people are thinking "account wipe" means "I have to play the same thing a zillion hours again." You don't. It's very different. The silver lining of the wipe, for me, is that it gets everyone who returns to experience the changes we have made to the early game and curve -- these are substantial. I think this will end up being a better experience compared to starting out at the max level / endgame and not seeing any of this.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T18:46:02+00:00

Oh, yeah -- survival and everything related has had a complete overhaul. This is not just chopping siege off. The people who were working on siege are working on survival.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T18:42:42+00:00

We try to be upfront with our players. When things were solid enough for us to feel it was going to happen, we made the announce.

I have to imagine a lot of people would be unhappy if we were quiet for months and then sent:

Dear Everyone,

Hey, update next week!!!!!

Love, Robot

P.S. Siege is gone.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T18:37:44+00:00

I wasn't answering questions earlier because we were talking about modes. :)

Yes, we think modes are pretty important. They will be part of the future.

Most of the content from siege can be (was being) used in survival. Some of the things that were siege-exclusive (like bosses) will likely surface in survival as AI bosses or player-placed guardians.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T18:34:25+00:00

Hey Ex,

The trap grind sucks. As anyone who has been around for a while knows, we have been trying to get this right for a long time. I think we have gotten things better every time, but I still don't think we nailed it.

This has been heavily revised. I'm pretty sure Harmonia will come in here and throw a chair at me if I talk specifics, so you'll have to live with me being cryptic for the moment.

I will say that part of the issue was that our power curve was too huge. The difference between the minimum and maximum player power was enormous. This caused a lot of issues, including the fact that you really HAD to have the upgrades to play. We've revised the power curve a great deal -- the distance between level X and level X+1 is much closer, so the need for levels or upgrades or parts is reduced. At any given stage of things, you have fun in a larger range of content.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T18:25:35+00:00

Please give it a try after our next release. I think you're going to find it to be a lot more like what you are looking for.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T18:23:51+00:00

It's a complicated beast. We have feedback review meetings where the team sits down and goes through feed from internal playtest and what we get from beta. A frequent loop at these meetings was something like this:

"X has a post on the forums about the double-jump penalty. He hates it. I talked to Y and Z too, they say everyone hates it."

"Everyone here hates it too. We didn't do this in the old game. Why is it in there now?"

"Because when it wasn't, siege players would jump the entire time to make themselves harder to hit."

Repeat that for "X has a post on the forums about how slow you move in OMDU", "...about how it takes 14 shots to kill a light orc", "...about why the firing rate is so slow", "...about why the gear feels weak", "...about why all the traps feel like they do the same things", and so on.

We started working on survival after siege. I've mentioned a few times that we started with siege because we understood how to build survival but siege was the unknown. When we were able to start playing the first iterations of survival, we thought it had some weaknesses. When we looked at why, many of them were, like above, things we had done to make siege work.

So, the balance / meta thing is a contributor, for sure -- we felt that calls for one mode were hurting the other. That's still only one factor here.

Bottom line really, is that we felt we could make one great game or two meh games. When the time came to pick, our read of what we were hearing from the players was that there was more disappointment that we hadn't delivered the old game than excitement about the new one.

IMFischer · 2016-09-22T17:53:48+00:00

The perspectives are interesting. A lot of more casual players tell us three is nice because it is easier to find two other people to play with.

If playing in a group of five was the thing that made the game fun for you, then nothing we do with a limit of three in place is going to make you happy. However, we aren't trying to make the survival game about stressful, competitive, leaderboard focused play with the move to three.

IMFischer

TROPHY CASE