Progress Report
Month of the Mad God is coming to a close and it is again time for us to reflect on the past and what we want to work on in the future. On the 22nd of August, a patch will officially end our annual madness along with the second wing of our Abandoned Mineshaft dungeon, the “Crystal Cavern” being released.
The next big milestone for us will be Challenger mode, which we have been working on for quite a while now. Unfortunately we kept hitting roadblocks on the technical side and are not out of the woods yet, which is delaying our original release date. 
For those of you who haven’t heard about the idea at all, Challenger mode is supposed to become an event mode that will follow a different set of rules every time it is activated. We are super excited about getting this thing going, as it will give us a ton of options to play around with. Our first limited event will have everybody starting fresh, including your pet yard and capping the pet levels at 70. While feeding will be free, you won’t be able to buy food and will instead have to hunt it down through gameplay. You will be able to play any class from the get go and while trading will be disabled, we are giving both drops and fame gain a serious overhaul. There will be a reduced selection of dungeons and like the loot, their spawn rates will be overhauled. At long last, Oryx will be back in business.
We are currently beta testing internally and cooking up something that will distinguish you from others if you do particularly well in one Challenger event — just think, world champion belts to claim and defend during the next season. We are also looking to add more permanent rewards that will then travel to your main account for completing a chain of quests on Challenger mode. We will keep you posted on the details as soon as we can.
Our Unity client is also progressing nicely, getting more polished with each release. We can now connect to the production server, so you might find our devs zipping past you every now and then. 
We are planning for an extended Blog post in early September to share some more video clips with music. If you want to follow along, please visit our Realm of the Mad God Remastered homepage and check out the Blog.
Cheating and Banning Policies
The topic that has become a video and source of memes in and of itself, which has also lead to some inaccuracies in the depiction of the situation. Before going into detail, we wanted to outline the general idea behind the policies we were using.
We always tried to take into account that everybody can make mistakes and thus we decided against a zero tolerance policy. Instead, we divided the types of offenses and placed a three strike policy on every single one of them — which meant that our customer support agents were counting different amounts of strikes for different offenses. Let’s assume a player had two strikes for griefing and one strike for multi-boxing, in the system he would have two strikes as the max not three. We will get back to our evaluation of this system and the changes we have made and will make after going through the examples from the recent video. While we have to leave out any personal information, due to data privacy rules, we have identified the different cases and reviewed and discussed them with our customer support agents.
In the first example, a player was reported for not being affected by unstable and the assertion was made that nothing was done on our side. Upon review, the agents followed the standard procedure, where they apply a temporary ban for any first offense. Note that if a player is reported for the same offence multiple times, the punishment does not increase with the number of reports for obvious reasons. This does sometimes make it hard for our agents as they will have to make a judgment call on whether they are looking at the same offense or not, as time of report and evidence can sometimes differ.
The second example was a similar case. Here the player was on his second offense and got hit with an increased ban duration vs the first one, putting him into the permanent ban range for any further violation.
Finally, we had the infamous Z — admittedly, watching this one in the video confused us as well. Turns out, this was a human error on our side.
We are going to go full disclosure here, but please keep in mind that our hard working guys from the customer support teams have to deal with a lot of shenanigans from players trying to trick them. Sometimes it is as simple as trying to skim an item, other times they are trying to steal other people’s accounts. This means they have to make a lot of judgment calls on cases that are not always black or white and not always with the same agent. We will definitely not throw them under the bus for mistakes that happen.
So mister Z was reported for a bannable offense, the first of the sort at this point in time. He was banned for said offense and then supposedly wrote in to report himself for the same offense. We say supposedly because the agent was assuming that it was someone else pretending to be the account owner (which wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened and as he was writing from a different email than what was saved in the account database, not outlandish to assume).
Once the player Z had provided more evidence of his account ownership and asked again to be permanently banned, customer support followed suit. At this point in time though, it was no longer about the bannable offense from previous tickets as much as about the standard procedure of a player asking for his account to be permanently locked. And this is where things went wrong. Unfortunately, the standard reply that usually goes with a normal request for an account lock was sent, including the unlock option. With this being the last known interaction to the next agent handling the case, he went ahead and removed the ban upon the next ticket being sent, without further investigation.
Now, here is what should have happened. Upon verifying the account ownership, support should have reviewed several past tickets and ban for offenses admitted to, instead of referring to the request for account closure. As stated initially, this was a mistake that we have since corrected.
And then we had the topic of permanent bans being appealable or expiring after 999 days. This is a topic that actually dates back to Kabam days and was of course not the intended outcome when agents were inputting the ban duration. They were initially trained that way, since the system does not have the functionality to put a true permanent ban on an account. We guess that people assumed that 999 would be a ludicrous enough amount of days to deter the account owner from ever coming back. Once our customer support leads realized the potential issue at the end of 2016, they changed the policy to inputting a lot more 9’s — we will also be double checking past perma bans.
We hope you are still with us after this lengthy explanation. Having checked in with the customer support team, we can assure you that every report is being followed up on and action is taken — mistakes not withstanding. The reason the agents answer with templates is both for efficiency and because they are simply not allowed by policy and law to disclose any information on specific accounts to others. It does not reflect the work they put in behind the scenes.
What this investigation lead to for us, beyond that, is to have another hard look at our banning policy and figuring out how to find the right balance. A lot of you are calling for a zero tolerance policy and we get that. At the same time, we have to adjust for the fact that a lot of players — especially those not on this platform — are oblivious to the fact that 3rd party clients and items from 3rd party sites and such are not allowed. Then you have people who try it because friends suggest it or they just like some of the features, etc.
The first change we already made some time ago was to no longer count bannable offenses separately. If you get reported for multi-boxing and later for a hacked client, that is two strikes right there, not 1 + 1 as it used to be. We have also decided to increase the initial time of a ban upon first offense to 14 days and are considering upping this to 30 days, depending on severity. Finally, we have decided to move to a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to duping or RWT. A first major offense in this department will lead to a permanent ban and we will be reviewing old cases again just to be sure they follow this guideline.
The team will continue to work against cheaters but keep in mind that it is a lot harder to police on a free to play game, where everybody can just start on a new account and cheat all over again. Also, sometimes the proof might not be 100% irrefutable. We hope that the increased punishment will have an impact though, especially on those just testing the waters or those thinking of making the switch back to fair play.
As to a question that was raised regarding a different treatment of players that have spent on the game. Unfortunately, spenders often become the target of account take-overs and spoofing, thus we have to give our agents some room to make judgment calls on ban appeals to ensure that those accounts are not mindlessly tossed aside. Of course, they will still be on the lookout for suspicious patterns and paying players do receive inherently preferential treatment with ban leniency.
Going forward we will also commit additional resources dedicated to working on anti-hack solutions and tracking on the backend side to find a proper solution, especially with our sights trained on the Unity release. The recent attacks on our servers showed us some loopholes that we were already able to plug, and in the process, we uncovered some solid data on accounts involved in cheating/duping that we can make use of going forward. We definitely don’t want to over-promise here and you will have to wait to tell for yourself if there will be a difference, but we do hope that you were able to take away something positive from this paragraph. Contrary to some remarks, we are definitely not worried that removing cheaters from our game would kill it. A lot of work that we are putting into our Unity client is to get prevention right from the start. Once flash is discontinued, the fight will be reset and we will have a bunch of new tools at our disposal.
Mystery Box - New Concept
As a team having inherited a business model from Kabam and working with what you could probably call some of the standard methods of most free to play games, you don’t question this topic a lot, as they are the basis for running the game. At this point the discussion would usually become about price vs. value and general annoyance at mystery boxes. We don’t think that this would lead to a fruitful outcome though, as a lot of it is based on opinions and emotions, which differ greatly and everybody is entitled to. So maybe just one point on mystery boxes from our point of view: The reason they exist is because their lower price allows for a broader audience to engage by paying smaller amounts while still having the chance of getting a sought after item.
Unlike a subscription based or full price games, the aforementioned broader audience being willing to chip in is needed for smaller free to play games like us. We are grateful that we have those kind of players, because obviously we couldn’t exist otherwise.
That being said , we have been thinking about how we can make our Mystery Boxes better for a while now, specifically on removing some of the downside that comes with any chance based system. Taking into account feedback from the community, we think we found a solid first step in the right direction and would like to introduce you to the new system which will go live on the 22nd of August with the release of some special skins. In a nutshell, we want to offer different purchase options at different price points depending on player preference.
The first thing we will add is a choice for players between trying to obtain a set of skins through Mystery Boxes for 169 gold and directly buying them in a package with a bonus for 3999 gold. This idea is based off of feedback from some of our trusted testers that are also collectors and do not want to engage in chance based games at all. Secondly, Mystery Boxes will be designed to ensure that players get a skin of choice after a certain number of rolls if they don’t get a lucky draw sooner.
How will this work?
In these new Skin Mystery Boxes, we will be getting rid of lower value rewards and replace them with Crystals of Extreme Fortune. These Crystals can be used in two ways. The primary intention is of course collecting them and exchanging the appropriate amount at the Tinkerer for a newly released skin, currently 4 stacks of x20. If you ever find yourself just wanting to take a few spins or if you have excess crystals that you do not plan on collecting further, they still serve as pet food. So if you are aiming to get one of the new skins, you should probably stack them. Note that you will be able to collect these crystals at your own pace in order to eventually exchange them for a skin, as they will be the same in every new skin or premium skin release box.
Here is an example of the upcoming box. We will probably just stick to a similar structure going forward:
https://i.imgur.com/mI7M2js.png
Based on the different amounts of crystals ranging from 1-20, you should on average be able to get a new skin of choice using crystals within at most 36 spins of the box. Of course you have the chance to hit something better in addition or sooner as well, like one of the Jackpots with both skins and multiple high value items.
• 1 in 100 - One of the Jackpots
• 1 in 33 - To get a new skin
• 1 in 8 - To get a Vault Chest Unlocker or better
The quest at the Tinkerer will be available for one month after the release of a new skin, so you don’t have to hurry. You can spin a few new boxes and once you have enough crystals, exchange them for one of the new skins released this month.
We will also be implementing a new type of box for skins that have been already released in the past. Each week we will be offering 8 skins inside 2 boxes. These boxes will contain Crystals of Fortune which have the same feeding power as Crystals of Extreme Fortune, however the quest to exchange for a skin will be different. The Tinkerer will offer one out of 8 skins available on the current week, also at 4 stacks of 20x Crystals. These Crystals will probably also make an appearance in other boxes or packs from time to time. Example of the box:
https://i.imgur.com/Ne2IcNF.png
These boxes are created so that on average, every 17 spins you should be able to get at least one out of 8 skins of your choice using crystals you collected. On top of that, you still have the chance of hitting the main jackpot as the ultimate prize, getting all 4 skins in a single spin. Chances for boxes with this structure will be as follows:
• 1 in 250– Ultimate Jackpot with all four skins
• 1 in 50 – 80 crystals in a single spin to get a skin of your choice
• 1 in 7 – Vault Chest Unlocker or better
The quest for 8 skins will be available for 2 weeks after the release of the box. Both Crystals of Fortune and Crystals of Extreme Fortune will have the same feed power. But be careful, the more you stack, the smaller the increment of FP gets. If you are looking for the best deal in terms of feed power, the food only boxes will stay the right call. Crystal x1 starts at 400 FP and it increase with each stack by 400 until you reach a stack of 5 worth 2000 FP. Then by adding each stack the food power will increase only by 100 until you reach Crystal x20 worth 3500FP.
We hope that this new system will at least partially meet your expectations. We would also like to outline that we will try to make further improvements once Unity is out. It will also take a couple of days for a transition where there will be boxes live both with the old and new design.
Chest Events
A few producer letters back if memory serves right, we were discussing Chest Events and why they were a thing. The answer has remained largely the same. It isn’t for an extra squeeze on the wallets as much as it is because all data points toward more people being engaged and playing when they are around. An argument that came up was that people don’t necessarily want to play but feel they have to whenever an event is running, in order to not feel they are “falling behind." This definitely needs to be taken into account somehow and balanced against the obvious popularity on the other side. Understandably players will rarely say no to an increased chance at getting drops.
The other issue raised was that the gameplay style of waiting in the Nexus for dungeons to be opened is hurting the gameplay experience. With those topics in mind we set up a public poll regarding opening keys in the Nexus on the aforementioned Discord server.
https://i.imgur.com/I8WDlbH.png
While this is a fairly general question, it is very relevant to the current situation seen on servers like USSouth, which is geared almost entirely toward keys. In an effort to please more players, we took steps during Month of the Mad God to introduce events outside of chest events, such as the UFO event and Wormholes. Though there was a small shift in traffic, a huge amount of players still leaned in favor of sticking to chest event runs.
As many things in Realm, we once again have a topic that seemingly divides the player base and makes it harder for us to take proper action. However, we are definitely pursuing a different direction by creating new, more meaningful types of events in the future. We hope that the upcoming Challenger Mode will be a leap forward in delivering gameplay and replay value that is fun and… well, challenging.
New Hires & Ongoing Communication Initiative
Next up, after our former Senior Producer r4ndomSXD left the company (he will be posting a personal goodbye letter shortly), we used the gap he left to try and change some things that we had in a way parked for far too long.
First, we decided to once again focus on our communication with the broader player base, so our live team went ahead and joined forces with the admins of the public Discord server to form a feedback channel in which we provide answers to the top-voted questions on a weekly basis or more frequently if time allows. If you wish to participate, please find the feedback channel on the public Discord, or if you are just interested in reading our answers, check out the #deca-responses channel. Shoutout to the mods for all the hard work and setting up the proper bots! If you want to read up on all the past questions and answers about unity, check out this Reddit post with a collection of everything so far.
Second, we wanted to bolster our ability to deliver content and make meaningful changes to the game in the future. Thus we hired two trusted members from our UGC program to join us as full and part-time employees. You will probably know them under the names Kiddforce and Toastrz, and if you don’t know them, we will let them introduce themselves here.
" Hello! I’m Kiddforce, one of the very first members of the user generated content group (UGC). Since I started back in 2016, I’ve been responsible for a few projects including Toxic Sewers, Biff the Buffed Bunny, Lost Halls, or more recently the Lair of Draconis rework. As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been with the team for a few months now and am going under the name /u/KiddF. I am beyond excited to be working with the team to help create a better Realm of the Mad God for all of you! "
“ Hello! I’m Toastrz. After spending extensive time in the user generated content group with projects such as the Cursed Library, Secluded Thicket, and Honey Scepter more, I am excited to officially join the Deca team and produce more regular content for you to enjoy! I’ll have a hand in community management as well, for which you’ll see me going under /u/Deca_Toast. I will also be stepping down as a subreddit moderator to prevent any concerns of a conflict of interests. I greatly look forward to helping this game grow and prosper as it approaches its next big step! ”
With their help, we are confident that we will be able to tackle rebalancing, find fun alternatives to straight-up chest events, and other topics that bubble to the top and require a lot of theory crafting mixed with the right amount of gameplay advancement. We are super happy to have them on board!
And there you go! We covered a lot of ground in this one and hopefully you made it this far with a solid mix of information, clarification, and glimpses into the future.
Personally as the business owner, now stepping in to fill the gaps that were left with our senior producer departing, I am marveling at the humbling experience that working on a live game always is. It is tough to get it right and I am grateful for all the feedback that was directed towards the company, the game team, and me personally.
Maybe we will meet up in the public Discord where I am slated for a Q&A session on Thursday, August 22nd at around 7pm CET (5pm UTC).
Until next time, I wish you all the best!
Yazaemon
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