Hello Heroes and Villains!
Our next big game update is around the corner, which means it’s time to give you a proper update on how our roadmap has evolved through another community update! Our next release is coming faster than we originally planned, and because of this, Soft Launch Update 6 will come with a few less features than we had discussed since the last community update.
After reviewing our last roadmap, the team came to the conclusion that it would be best to release our next planned updates more quickly, allowing our players to experience new changes and features in order to gather all possible feedback and thus help us create a better game leading to worldwide launch!
- This allows us to get the latest and greatest version of the game in your hands more quickly, which means we get to hear your feedback and iterate faster.
- This makes it easier to measure the impact of each individual change we introduce to our players. We get to see what works and what doesn’t more quickly, allowing us to determine the changes we need to make in the future.
- It helps our team get into more of a “live game mindset.” In other words, with the game coming this year, we need to make sure we’re all ready to support the game rapidly. We have tons of features and content planned beyond launch, and we need to make sure we’re doing that with minimal downtime and as bug-free as possible.
With that in mind, here’s our updated roadmap!
CHARACTER BALANCING
As we mentioned in the last update, every character in the game is getting an overhaul so the Roles are clarified, Groups have stronger identities, and metagame balance is considered. This release is our first pass at this, and we are not 100% there yet—for example, Group Bonuses are generic, and many Power Move and Passive upgrades are simple—but the new foundation is there. We can’t wait for you to play with these new characters in order to gather all the information needed to iron out these features come worldwide launch!
CHARACTER MANAGEMENT
The new Character Management screen is here! Group & Faction affiliation is more obvious, Gear functionality is improved, and Leveling is streamlined.
UI POLISH
You can see a ton of new UI changes across the whole game! Aside from the Character Management screen, the buttons, pop-ups, background, and most other areas have been improved.
HOME SCREEN
We teased it last time, but now you can check out the new Home Screen! This is your new base of operations for your Heroes & Villains. You’ll see your characters hanging out, have quick access to features, and then enjoy uncluttered Location Maps that focus solely on the Campaign and Event Missions.
LOCATION MAPS
We also gave a glimpse of the new Locations Maps in the previous update, but now you can experience it for yourself. The holographic style is way more detailed, the effects are more engaging, and you can even zoom into each Sector to see the individual missions. With this change, you’re able to interact more directly with the map, and we feel like we’re delivering the quality that cities like Gotham deserve.
With this new view, we’ve also added Side Missions and Star Rewards for each Sector of a Location.
- Side Missions: Faction-specific Missions that challenge you to assemble your best teams of Heroes and Villains.
- Star Rewards: Earn stars on every mission to collect more of those sweet Gems!
EPIC BOSS FIGHTS
As you go through the campaign, you’ll run into several more epic boss fights, similar to the Darkseid and Enchantress battles in the tutorial that everyone seemed to enjoy. We won’t spoil them for you, but we’re definitely looking forward to your feedback!
NARRATIVE
The new narrative in Gotham and Metropolis is now available! The mystery around the Church of Blood is much more coherent, and the plot thickens as you delve into Metropolis. Again, critical moments are heightened by epic boss fights, and we’re looking to add more in future releases.
NEW MUSIC
You can now enjoy new music in the Home screen, menus, and Metropolis! We have a ton more audio polish coming in future releases as well. For now, a lot of characters are missing sound effects, and we know sound can generally be improved across the game.
BATTLE UPDATES
Our dedicated battle team continues to make our battles shine. All of the improvements we mentioned in the last update are now available:
- Enemies now have hit reaction animations.
- We’ve improved the VFX when using the Target Tile (created with a 2×2 match).
- Even better pacing throughout the battle.
- Allowing Power Moves to be triggered simultaneously.
- Improved communication of different combat states (Buffs, Debuffs, Melee vs. Ranged Power Moves, etc.).
WAIT…SOME STUFF IS MISSING
This is the start of major improvements for the game, and you’ll also notice that several old features have been disabled in this release. Going along with our goal to keep our updates focused, Challenges, Events, Assault Mode, Guild Raid Battles, Choice Missions and the Battle Pass are temporarily unavailable. Since we’re planning on more frequent updates, however, you’ll see these return progressively over the next few months.
FUTURE RELEASES
We hope you’re as excited as we are about all of the new changes to the game! Now let’s take a look at what’s next.
CHOICE MISSIONS
Our next release will see the improved Choice Missions! Previously, Choice Missions randomly spawned throughout the day—we’ve changed it to give players more agency and increase the overall fun:
- Everyone gets a Scanner that’s available in the Location Maps.
- The Scanner has a fixed amount of scans that recharge over time.
- Tapping the scanner reveals one Choice Mission on a Landmark, which will be available for a limited time.
In a future iteration, Choice Missions will add rarities—we’re starting with “Common” missions, but you can expect at least one more rarity that will come with higher stake scenarios and better rewards.
BATTLE PASS
Choice Missions will still be an important way to advance in the Battle Pass, so we’ll be pairing the two together in the next release. As we said in the previous update, we’ve decided to simplify the Battle Pass down to a single track to make things easier to understand. This will also come with significantly better rewards—a completely free “starter pass” that provides a guaranteed character, plus a featured character in each premium monthly pass after that.
PvP – ASSAULT MODE
Choice Missions and Battle Pass will be the primary stars of the next release, but we’re targeting PvP after that. We missed the mark with our first attempt at PvP. The next iteration of “Casual PvP” will have UI improvements and focus on early players experimenting with their teams and earning more rewards. Instead of Leaderboards, early PvP will be all about advancing in Leagues and earning valuable items along the way. We also won’t restrict it to Hero and Villain teams, and opponent selection will be clarified.
We still plan on doing a more competitive version of PvP with leaderboards, but that will be in a later release.
GUILD RAIDS
There’s a lot we can do with Guilds, but the first goal is to improve the UI, increase Raid Boss variety, and make it more fun to coordinate with your Guild. We have a lot to do before we get back to Guild Raids though, so we’ll provide more details in a future update.
PREPARING FOR RELEASES
As we continue to work on the worldwide release of the game coming later this year, the team is putting its final focus on the release of Soft Launch Update 6. This update is our biggest yet, and because of the upcoming changes to the game, the team has decided that another in-game reset is needed in order to help us better understand how the new changes will affect all players. Just like our resets in the past, current Soft Launch players will be compensated with in-game resources based on progression and monetary investment during the time played since the last in-game reset.
The compensation is based on the following factors:
- Account Level – This applies to players who have played past versions of the game during Soft Launch.
- Amount spent
Using the above factors, affected players will receive an in-game mail with their respective compensations upon launching the game after the reset.
Note: If you believe that your compensation package is incorrect, please contact our support team directly for any questions or issues here.
FAQ
- Why did we do another reset?
With the recent changes to the campaign and overall balancing, we want all of our current Soft Launch players to experience the new game experience from the beginning. This reset helps us better understand the changes we have applied, and helps the team gather the proper data needed in order to make the best game experience possible.
- Will there be another reset?
At this time nothing is planned, but as we continue to gather data after this next reset we will have a better understanding and overall idea if we need to perform another global reset.
- Where can I collect my compensation?
An in-game mail will be sent out to all affected players. If you are a player who had monetary investment in the game, you will receive 2 different in-game mails with your respective compensation–one for the account level you reached before the reset, and one for the monetary value spent before the reset.
- Something is wrong with my compensation, who can I contact?
WORLDWIDE LAUNCH
It’s 2023, and we’re launching this year. With so much coming in the next release though, it’s still too early to give an exact date, but we promise that we will let the community know as soon as we can on what the exact release date will be. We’re getting there!
WE’VE UPDATED OUR PRE-REGISTRATION REWARDS!
In case you missed it! We’ve revamped our pre-registration rewards for everyone when the game launches this year. Everyone who pre-registered will receive the following items at launch:
- Exclusive Portrait
- Exclusive Player Title
- Gems
- Coins
- Metatopes
- Playable Catwoman Character
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
If you’re a player who has access to the Soft-Launch build that is available in our many regions (Belgium, Denmark, the Philippines, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands!) then we are always looking for your feedback!
Join our Discord Server and drop your suggestions in the appropriate channel.
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