Producer's Letter: Oryx 3 and DC's

#1

xpost from this Reddit post:


@moderators please move to News and Information

July 17, 2020

Hello! You may have heard somewhere that Oryx 3 will be releasing next week on July 22. Because of this, combined with some extra important news about Exalt, we’ll be taking the opportunity to turn this week’s blog into a mini producer’s letter! Not as long as last time, we promise!

Oryx’s Sanctuary

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A stained glass portrait in the final hall approaching the Mad God himself

Status updates regarding Oryx 3 have been a staple of this blog since we started these back in March. Oryx’s Sanctuary has been a monumental project for the whole team, starting pre-production way back in December. We’ve been happy to give updates almost every week, big or small, and hope this has given some general insight on how dungeon development flows.

This is the final blog before its release, so as a final teaser, we want to show off an important part of any dungeon that we haven’t shown much of yet. The loot, of course! We confirmed a while back that brand new T14 weapons, T7 abilities, and T15 armors will drop (as well as the Angelic Bard ST set) but have said precious little about the heaviest hitters: The UTs!

Without further ado, here is a look at the items you’ll be able to get your hands on in less than a week! Bear in mind that these are still subject to some change and are not strictly final.

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Mad God Oryx’s Sword: Divinity

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Mad God Oryx’s Shield: Oryx’s Escutcheon

Mad God Oryx’s Heavy Armor: Gladiator Guard

Mad God Oryx’s Accessory: Exalted God’s Horn

Archbishop Leucoryx’s Wand: Lumiaire

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Archbishop Leucoryx’s Tome: Chaotic Scripture

Archbishop Leucoryx’s Robe: Vesture of Duality

Archbishop Leucoryx’s Accessory: Divine Coronation

Treasurer Gemsbok’s Dagger: Avarice

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Treasurer Gemsbok’s Prism: Gambler’s Fate

Treasurer Gemsbok’s Light Armor: Turncoat Cape

Treasurer Gemsbok’s Accessory: Collector’s Monocle

Chancellor Dammah’s Staff: Superior

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Chancellor Dammah’s Spell: Genesis Spell

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Chancellor Dammah’s Robe: Diplomatic Robe

Chancellor Dammah’s Accessory: Chancellor’s Cranium

Chief Beisa’s Katana: Enforcer

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Chief Beisa’s Star: Ballistic Star

Chief Beisa’s Light Armor: Centaur’s Shielding

Chief Beisa’s Accessory: Battalion Banner

Oryx’s Sanctuary will only be available on Exalt. On that note…

Exalt Disconnections

With the release of Oryx 3, Exalt will become the default option on both Steam and the web and enter its official release stage. Playing on Flash will still be possible for now to allow time to transition, and we will keep everyone fully informed on our plan and schedule for Flash’s departure.

As of the latest update a few days ago, our recent changes were a vast improvement for the Unity client. We resisted the urge to fill the patch notes with triumphant statements of “DC’S ARE FIXED!” just to be extra safe and ensure our improvements were working as expected in a production environment, but the difference has been extremely noticeable. Specifically, we have already seen an overall drop in disconnections by 60% on Exalt.

A very important milestone was also achieved with this update. With these changes, the Unity client officially became more stable than Flash, with 30% less disconnections on Exalt and more reductions to come. There are still many things we want to continue improving in terms of stability, but with this threshold reached, we now feel it is appropriate to make Exalt our default option as it provides a more stable experience than the alternative.

Many of the things we wish to improve are a consequence of the backend code being built for Flash’s architecture over 10 years ago. We are changing these things now to modernize and adjust them to the Unity platform, and have hired additional developers to help with this task. When Flash is fully killed, this will further unshackle us to make more improvements (as mentioned in more detail in the last producer’s letter).

No online game can eliminate 100% of DC’s due to their very nature, but by the time Flash is shut down, we aim to greatly minimize them, even more so than they are after the latest fixes in which we saw huge improvement.

Like many other games (despite what some people have suggested), we are using AWS (Amazon Web Services) servers in regions all around the world. We are aware that many people play the game by jumping between servers in different regions, but this is not optimal and is the cause of many DC’s. We recommend playing on the “Best Server” option when possible, especially if you experience significant issues when jumping between major region distances, such as flipping between US and EU servers.

As more players start to play on Exalt, we will continue to gather even more data on remaining stability problems. We have invested a lot into systems to track everything and it should be much easier for us to fix all issues as data rolls in.

Upcoming Content

Going back to Oryx for a moment! We delayed it several times compared to our original goals, as we felt this was necessary to put out a complete experience without needing to rush or cut corners. We are pleased that this exciting project is releasing at last, and believe it is in a very good place right now. Nevertheless, we will still be looking into balance changes a few weeks after release (both the fights and the items) to polish out any potential imbalances.

Very soon you should also see some quality of life improvements regarding visibility, as well as a better display of boss health bars. And prepare for Ancient August, as it will be… Sturifick!

#2

might as well leave my thoughts on a few things while I’m here:

DC data is extremely encouraging, both in what they show and in the fact that deca recorded data at all. definitely an unambiguous major plus there.

I had my suspicions on the sever-end stuff holding unity back, which this seems to confirm. it makes sense anyway. dunno if I mentioned those suspicions here or somewhere else though.

as for the recommendation to play on “best server”, I believe the current system picks the one closest to you instead of picking the one with the best ping time, meaning that it isn’t necessarily picking the best server. perhaps that might be something worth considering moving forward if deca wants players to select that option in the future.

lastly, I must confess I felt a distinct sensation of despair reading through the UTs once I realized that all of oryx’s cronies also get full sets for UT drops. I suspect the majority of players haven’t 100% completed LH’s white drops even after all these years plus the few LH events that have been peppered in occasionally. this is going to be even worse to farm for given that you only get to fight one henchman per run and have no way of knowing/picking which it’s going to be. for your consideration: do they really need this many item drops, or is it just for show? do you really feel like adding this many items as drops actually improves the content or is it just an assumption that everything “big” needs to have a lot of rare drops? I don’t think it’d be too hard to cut out 2 UTs per henchman without losing anything super important (like that tome, which is yet another one to add to the growing pile of “tome that does damage” archetype).

okay I lied that wasn’t my last point. this is:

what does this mean? bwuh

#3

Highlights, for anyone who doesn’t want to read the whole thing.

O3 - Associated knight set revealed. Attack with exalted beams that do huge dps.

Leucoryx - Associated priest set. Wand is highest dps in the game at low def (?) and drops off pretty quickly. Tome is highest dps tome we have seen so far. Robe also boosts attack, and ring boosts dex. So, overall a very high dps priest set.

Gemsbok - Trickster set. Dagger has dps of etherite with longer range than tiered (dang). Strange coin decoy ability. Armor makes you invisible when hit, and ring makes you get higher attack when invisible.

Dammah - Wizard set. Staff is useless. Staff has low range but does insane DPS, beating T13 up to 75 def. Spell, robe, and ring all make you summon things that do damage. I am super hyped to see this in action. My favorite miniboss, and seems like a really unique set.

Beisa - Ninja set. Katana is lower dps but higher range (groan). Star throws 8 projectiles in a parametric pattern, some of which can stun enemies, and also heals you. Armor increases your attack when you have the healing effect. Ring summons banner that does dps and grants damaging. So you basically become an mseal pally and a knight, at the cost of having no defense or hp.

While it is great to hear there are improvements in this area, they don’t say that this number of disconnections is at all weighted by the number of people playing on each platform… I would hope it is weighted in some way because or else it seems very misleading. Either way, Unity will be the default version of Realm starting next week (!) so I look forward to continued improvements into the future!

#4

Stur…Stur…it’s on the tip of the tongue…

I’m betting half / half, both for thematicism and generally “virtually any class can get something here” (although that would have been easier to get with limiting it to only 3 armors specifically, but then you might get inconsistencies with weapons and abilities and rings…).

inb4 it gets changed at the last minute to become…idk, some sort of megaheal tome or what.
tbf, there’s not that many things that tomes don’t already do. Aside from maybe Slowed and too-powerful-for-their-own-good status effects like armor broken, stunned, paralyzed.

#5

4 shots vs 2, seems powerful…

#6

That indeed would be what I missed… Yeah, okay, that is pretty nuts now.

#7

The DC improvements are awesome and very noticeable (before this update I was using flash whenever I wanted to run big dungeons or oryx’s castle, because I would always dc on exalt). Cool to know that exalt is actually more stable than flash now

I’m not really a fan of the sheer amount of UTs - personally, I’d be happy with the minibosses having 0-2 whites - having so many will make it next to impossible to farm for any one in particular (and while I don’t think it’s an issue, this addition means people with crazy luck could theoretically get 5[edit: more with double whites] whites in the castle with x2ass+scutum+miniboss+o3). At least they’ll add more variety

Also, was it ever said before this that Oryx’s crest is a cross? His shield white definitely has a cross on it and calls it his crest

Beware, all ye who look upon this dreadful crest of the mad god

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#8

Not gonna lie, the ninja set needs changes, that banner doesn’t seem very good considering damaging is useless with a pally around, and the armor… it’s just a tenne that only works with healing, not comparable to t15 armor.

Sturky: The Very Old Ruined Place dungeon.

#9

Nice

#10

Now that i think about it, why did you remove some of the procs like the holy blasts in exalted horn and replace them with just much less unique stat increases, and not only that but remove procs like the one on divine coronation and gladiator armor?

#11

Something Id like everyone to consider.
The O3 ring and priest ring are literally identical.

This is frustrating simply because they have traded unique, game-expanding compatibility between UTs for being basic and uninspired stat buffed armors. In the leaks we were shown sets that had not only unique characteristics, but actual compatibility and effect themeing, and these were ready to be hugely interesting to experiment with and try out new combinations. By removing these key items, Deca has effectively shot the enjoybility and hype in the foot.

This might sound picky, but remember, O3 is equatably the true endgame, final dungeon, end-all. It has been talked about for almost a decade, and Deca prioritizing playing it safe over embracing ROTMG’s culmination is saddening.

#12

I think the best server does pick the server with lowest ping for you. I’ve had my best server change when the original server is crowded for example. If the system was just picking closest server, this wouldn’t be possible.

#13

I must agree that by the nature of priests, having tomes that do damage is really useless. I’d rather go on a better dps class than try to increase the dps of one of the lowest dps classes.

#14

So from both experience and a ping checker, USMW lags less for me than AE despite me being geographically in East Asia and my best server being that too. Perhaps the server changes when it detects a certain amount of people already in it?

#15

Right off the bat, I notice that the new UT dagger seems like a superior version of UT daggers in both range and damage. Unless it has a weird shot pattern or slow projectile speed? (Or if daggers are finally getting their needed buff)

#16

I honestly just go to different servers because my Best Server is completely dead.

#17

Sorry to be that guy, but…

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V:

#18

Sturkology? Sturkiometrics?

#19

The prism seems to have a very underpowered effect unless I’m missing something. No tp and an unreliable decoy with a chance of lasting only a few seconds? Hopefully they make the decoy spawn on the cursor, that may be able to redeem it

(Although, 4 atk and dex is pretty spicy)

#20

Looks like it spawns on cursor, in which case its exactly the kind of prism we’ve theory crafted for so long.

Sadly its locked behind a generally harmful teleport and a low duration.