Some points from last devchat with Tom Kick and Safelocked

[young vapor]

I didn't watch the whole thing (1 hour long) but had some help from GPT extracting key points from the transcript. If something is wrong or important is missing, lmk. I also left out some things I didn't see as very relevant.
Video Link: https://youtu.be/MxA_5GtidOM?si=JnL0X7edMNKF_bdF

(Corrected with @zinc acorn's help)

• Before 1.0 they will focus on bug fixing and balance, so no major changes until 1.0 drops

• There are going to be major hunter changes/reworks, goal being to make them less frustrating to play as and against

• Even in 1.0 we'll get a new patch every 2 weeks

• The new hunters for june, july, august will all drop with 1.0 (not all at once but close together)

• Arc/season is being merged into one thing. Originally they were going to have rank reset based on season and content drop based on arcs, but since rank now resets every arc anyway, they will merge

• Vision cones will likely be reverted to before because its tough on the servers

• Tutorial & Onboarding continue to get improved/changed (feature unlocks etc.)

• “Late summer” target for 1.0

• The creator program will become more closed/NDA’d for 1.0-era features to maximize reveal impact and reward invested creators.

• Balance decisions will be less focused on high-end gameplay (eg. scrims) since it's a narrow audience, but rather more focused on the average player (gameplay differs a lot between the two)

• Data such as win rate, pick rate, and community sentiment will be considered

Hudson

• Getting reworked

Joule

• Eventually getting reworked

Brall n Jin

• Tend to spike in strength immediately after small tweaks.
• Devs will address not just win-rate but their frustration factor.

Oath

• B-hop tech is being nerfed.
• They’ll restore some mobility in other ways so he isn’t left feeling clunky.

Shiv

• They’ll tune her healing-on-knock and consider adding clearer anti-heal counterplay.

Felix

• Identity sharpening planned (balance between flamethrower versus melee focus).
• No immediate changes until they have a clear, narrowly scoped rework plan.
  (so getting rework eventually)

Myth

• Reign of Arrow adjustments coming tomorrow

New Hunters:

• Next hunter has unique dash mechanic
• A new tank hunter is being worked on

[rocky saffron]

There is so much wrong here...

Idk where to begin...

[remote ravine]

ya I was gonna say, I think the ai did you dirty

[river tartan]

This is why you should never rely on AI

[amber escarp]

Maybe consider asking for time codes related to the points, so you can manually check what was said

[young vapor]

We'll get there. Guess the tech is too young still. I watched the entire devchat before this one but didn't want to this time.

[young vapor]

Good idea.

[ember forge]

probably not the most responsible move to post an AI summary of a conversation you were not a part of without checking it for accuracy first

[young vapor]

Yes, I'm pretty irresponsible

[ember forge]

issok, same

[earnest burrow]

Care to highlight the biggest misinformation, just for those of us too at work to watch the video proper yet?

[rocky saffron]

Am at work myself. So I dont have time to write everything

If you have specific questions then I can get to it when am available

Much easier

[young vapor]

I might speed run the transcript later to double check if I find the time.

[earnest burrow]

Fair. I'll just find time for the video. Thanks, though!

[zinc acorn]

Heres the points but corrected to what I remember from watching it yesterday:

• before 1.0 they are going to focus on bug fixing and balance, meaning no major changes until 1.0 drops

• Yes there are going to be major hunter changes/reworks the goal is to make them less frustrating to play as and against

• The weird point the AI made about disrupting and refreshing high MMR meta I think is from Tom bringing up how they could make small balance changes that only affect high MMR meta so things feel new and refreshing to play/change for the sake of changing

• 1 patch every two week

• New hunters for jun july aug all drop very quickly in 1.0

• Vision cone change reverted for performance

• Tutorial and onboard will get better

• Not sure about the top community reported bug list point

• 1.0 target release is late summer

• Creator program will be more closed for creators who are more invested

• Arc/season is being merged into one thing, b/c originally they were gonna have rank reset based on season and content drop based on arcs, but since they are resetting rank every arc anyways they are just gonna merge them

• Balance decisions will likely NOT be based on high-end gameplay (eg. scrims) bc that is a really narrow audience, but rather more focused on the average player

• Data such as win rate, pick rate, and community sentiment will obviously be considered

• Top-tier play will definitely not get special attention bc its way different from the average game

[earnest burrow]

oh cool, the exciting stuff wasn't hallucinations

[zinc acorn]

As for the balance, I dont remember eva getting more buffs, and im not sure about the less escape on joule rework, and the rest I think are somewhat accurate

[rocky saffron]

Everything here is correct at least on first glance

[zinc acorn]

Might have some things wrong cuz I just quickly wrote it based on memory

[rocky saffron]

Nothing confirmed on eva changes. Nothing said about joule rework other than that its happening

[leaden lichen]

"Arc/season is being merged into one thing, b/c originally they were gonna have rank reset based on season and content drop based on arcs, but since they are resetting rank every arc anyways they are just gonna merge them"

hmmm this mysteriously means they only extended season zero and season 1 onward behaves as normal, I wonder what side effect of this might be desirable for TC

[zinc acorn]

I think originally a season was gonna last like a year with multiple arcs with new content every 3 month, but most games are moving towards shorter seasons and they felt like its better I guess?

[leaden lichen]

Tom Kick put forward yearly seasons in the first time it was mentioned publicly and Safelocked affirmed it was of the same wavelength but they never stated cadence

[young vapor]

Thank you Taricha, I'll adjust my post

[zinc acorn]

[vernal nymph]

size

[verbal plaza]

Probably late to this but this is INCREDIBLY concerning to look at

[young vapor]

I mean, the game isnt a huge competitive sport. The game will die or thrive based on the casual playerbase being big enough. They'll still try to balance for high MMR play just not as their main focus it seems.

[rocky saffron]

why is it concering?

[verbal plaza]

We’ve already had a lack of balancing to support higher level players (myth q and oath) so reducing that even more could lead to awful balancing and gameplay at high levels

And yes low levels are important but players won’t stay if the high level gameplay is bad or unbalanced

[earnest burrow]

Whereas lowe level gameplay, which includes every prospective new player, can be bad or unbalanced?

[verbal plaza]

No lmao

That’s not at all what I said

And I won’t speak on low level balance because I’m ill informed on it

[leaden lichen]

low level play is always whatever high level play does but in a time tunnel of whenever the game was last most popular

this is why low MMR junglers in LoL beg for a leash

or low level Overwatch players still think Ball is a troll pick

to that end it literally doesn't matter what's actually strong they'll all just gaslight each other into what's correct

SUPERVIVE is already no different you get people who think Hudson is the monster he once was

[earnest burrow]

Obviously good on both fronts is ideal, and I presume a balance or some level of consideration to both is what you want. Just shouldn't neglect the field for the peak.

[broken barn]

For low level balance it's honestly only Hudson and oath who are issues. Shrike who is our resident noob stomped isn't as bad when I played on my alt. Oath just holds right click and noone dies while Hudson just holds lmb and rmb and kills everyone. Hudson will be delt with in time and oath hopefully is delt with this patch.

[young vapor]

Supervive doesn't have nearly as impactful of a competitive scene though. I don't think the mid/low MMR gameplay and perspectives are very influenced by the competitive scene (of old or of new) since I doubt many of those players watched the prologue or abyssal cups.
I think they are more so just influenced by their personal experiences. I can see how Hudson would be a pretty hated pick at lower MMR. Much like shrike. I don't think that's due to a former competitive scene or even how the game was at launch necessarily.
It's true though that players often stick to former impressions within a game for quite a while before reconsidering them (if at all).

I misread, you didn't even mention competitive play but rather general popularity.

[leaden lichen]

Supervive doesn't have nearly as impactful of a competitive scene though

at present, but tradition cements itself often out of nowhere, give it time and it's an inevitability

[young vapor]

That I could see.

[young vapor]

actually. high level play

similar to competitive ig

[leaden lichen]

it's like in WoW as a tank you can get LFR flame you for walking down one of 2 entirely symmetrical corridors, literally no difference, other than the left path is the 'correct' path

[honest spade]

Are scrims different enough from high level ranked that they need to be balanced separately?

[verbal plaza]

ranked and scrims should be the same patch the game is nowhere near competitive enough to ned a seperate patch

[zinc acorn]

scrims and high level ranked are two different games xD

[leaden lichen]

no, but ranked balance isn't real

nobody should be balancing the game around a bot-infested Mickey Mouse queue

[honest spade]

But the average player deserves to have fun too. We already have player retention problems as is, and it's going to get worse if we don't provide balance changes that benefit the average player.

That doesn't mean that high level play doesn't deserve to receive balance changes, nor do all changes need to support the average player's experience, but giving some changes to the average player is extremely important for the long-term health of the game.

[leaden lichen]

You are acting as though ranked currently provides any basis for balancing but I'd ask you to consider what you would be balancing exactly?

[honest spade]

I don't know, I don't have the data or feedback forms they use to make balance decisions, and the anecdotal evidence I have on the state of the game is heavily warped by the echo chambers of discord and reddit.

I can't tell you what I would be balancing because I am not a designer at Theorycraft, but there's got to be a lot of evidence between data and player feedback that says some characters are too strong and some characters are too weak, that the larger sample size of ranked provides more accurate data than scrims, and balancing for ranked has a larger impact than balancing for scrims.