Hello Heroes and Villains!
We know many of you have been eagerly awaiting news and updates about the game, so let’s get straight to it—the goal of this community update is to answer all of your questions, let you know what’s happening with the game, and establish a better dialogue with the community. We all want this game to be a success, and we know we can’t do it without your support.
DC Heroes & Villains has been in production for several years, and the soft launch period has revealed important details about what’s working and what needs to be improved. The team has spent countless hours over the past few months planning our next steps, which we’re finally ready to share with you!
NEXT UPDATE RELEASE
After analyzing the game and listening to your feedback, we identified various critical parts that needed significant work. Our next release will give you a glimpse of where we’re going with the game.
UNLOCKING CHARACTERS
While the shard-based model of unlocking characters has its merits, it really limits the number of new characters you can get early in the game. It’s also not as exciting to open a Capsule and get parts of a character you can’t use yet. That’s why we’re moving away from the shard-based model in the next release.
Shards still exist in the game, but they’re only collected through character duplicates. Those shards are now used to upgrade Passive Abilities. Once you max out your abilities, you will earn a special currency that can be used in the new Upgrade Shop.
Our internal tests have already shown that this model is much more appealing and provides a better gaming experience, but we’re eager to hear your thoughts!
ASSAULT MODE – PvP
We always want to have new content, events, and modes for everyone to enjoy. We’re happy to share phase one of our new Assault Mode (PvP), which will be introduced in the next release! Phase one includes:
- Assemble your attack team with 5 DC characters from your roster.
- Your defense team is automatically selected from your strongest 5 Heroes or Villains.
- Win matches and earn trophies to climb the ranks!
- Earn Gems daily and use Assault Credits to unlock exclusive items in the new Assault Shop!
Phase one is all about building the foundation for PvP. We want to get everyone battling, testing the matchmaking, and ascending the ranks.
Phase two (coming at a later release) will bring a whole new dimension to the mode:
- Claim Strongholds throughout the locations
- Set up unique defense teams for each Stronghold
- Upgrade your Strongholds to improve your defense
- Use your Strongholds to generate Heroes and Villains Reputation
Unlocking characters and the addition of Assault mode are the biggest changes in the next release, make sure to read the release notes available in the coming weeks for even more details!
FUTURE UPDATE RELEASES
While we’re excited about the next release, it’s really just setting the table for what’s to come. Aside from phase two of Assault Mode, we have a variety of big improvements in the works:
THE LOCATION MAPS
From the very beginning, we wanted to make sure players have a reason to always come back and visit iconic DC universe locations—places like Gotham, Metropolis, and Themyscira are too special to simply finish and leave behind.
That goal presents a lot of challenges. Currently, the game allows players to pick between Hero and Villain paths across all locations, but it can quickly become overwhelming to decide where to go next. It also adds a lot of distractions to the maps.
So we’ve decided to streamline the map experience to really focus on what’s important:
- There will only be one campaign track with Heroes and Villains quickly teaming up at the beginning of the game.
- We’re adding Hero and Villain side missions so players still have a reason to develop separate Hero and Villain teams.
- Reputation Missions are being removed so the map can clearly communicate Choice Missions and Strongholds.
- We’re investing heavily into improving the map visuals. Not just artistically (although it’s going to look way better!)—we also want the transition into mission selection to be more immersive and easy to use.
- We’re improving the UI so it’s easier to know what’s available across all locations.
- Choice Missions will become more meaningful. This includes narrative context, interesting scenarios, and more impact from your choices. Did you decide to help the Villains blow up the courthouse? Enjoy the smoking rubble you’ve left on the map.
CHARACTER BALANCING
The DC Characters are the heart of the game, and we want to make sure we’re staying true to each character while also building a long-lasting metagame. Our combat team is hard at work analyzing every character, building stronger Synergies, clarifying Character Roles, and ensuring a variety of viable strategies across all modes.
BATTLE UPDATES
We’re proud of the battle experience we’re creating and the new elements we’ve introduced to the Puzzle RPG genre so far, but we’re not done yet! Here is a list of ongoing tasks that we want to improve on: We have a laundry list of things we want to improve, including:
- Better pacing throughout the battle
- Reduced downtime between matching tiles
- Allowing Power Moves to be triggered simultaneously
- Improved communication of different combat states (Buffs, Debuffs, Melee vs. Ranged Power Moves, etc.)
GAME RESET STATUS
The team can’t wait to get all of these new game features and improvements to our players. Since major changes are coming to the game, a game reset will be required in the next release for our development team to collect fresh data and evaluate the new improvements.
We understand that your engagement with the game—either time, energy, monetary or other—is valuable to us. To reward your early loyalty and support, we have a comprehensive plan to compensate players that are currently playing the game in Soft Launch.
We will gift players with a more than generous amount of in-game currencies based on their monetary transactions. On top of this, we will be gifting additional currencies to ALL players based on gameplay factors: amount of time invested, account progression, and characters (Hero/Villain) progression. Just ahead of the reset and compensation, we will communicate a more detailed timeline for when the gifts will be waiting in your in-game mailbox as part of the next release.
In order to ensure a smooth transition for all compensation gifts, we encourage all players to document their current in-game Support Key (shown at the top left corner of the loading screen or in your game profile).
WORLDWIDE LAUNCH STATUS
As you may see, the game is going through many improvements and a lot is planned for the coming months! While everything mentioned today should be available this year, we’re going to need more time to gather your feedback, iterate, and polish it before we feel comfortable to launch the game worldwide. That means, DC Heroes & Villains will have a new release date set in 2023. We will keep updating the community as we get closer to the official release window. Again, we thank you for your continuous support and patience!
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
As we continue our development of the game, we encourage everyone to join our official Discord 37server to stay up to date with all the latest news, share feedback, report bugs, and join the discussion!
Don’t forget to pre-register to unlock more rewards for everyone at launch!
