2.2.0 Update Preview #3

I'll be the first to admit that 2.2.0 has been the victim of some serious scope creep, but this is something that's needed doing for a while, and now is a good time to lay the foundations for it.

With Fragment having an increasingly diverse weapon sandbox, it's become very obvious that some weapon types are outright stronger than others, and others are simply too weak.

First off, the largest change is the complete rework of how the "stat enchantments" (Sharpness, Power) are distributed, and how they function in the first place.
Both Sharpness and Power are being changed to be multiplicative damage increases, instead of the vanilla additive behavior. While the numbers have been tuned in a way that the swords deal roughly the same damage they did before this update, other weapon types see more significant changes.

The other change regarding the damage enchantments is that all weapons now use the same tier based scaling for their stat enchantment levels. In plain-terms, this means that crossbows and tridents have the same stat enchantment per level as swords and other weapons do.

With that infodump out of the way, let's look at each weapon type in more detail.

Swords and axes are the plain bread of Fragment's weapon types, both being pure melee weapons with no additional functionality.

Where they differ is their damage-per-hit, and attack speed. Swords are the fastest attacking melee weapon type, dealing the least damage-per-hit, but making up for it with their fast attack speed to allow for quicker follow-up attacks and being less punishing for missing your attacks.

Swords are not affected much by these changes, being used as the baseline to balance the other weapon types around.

Axes on the other hand are the slowest traditional melee weapon type in the game, only outpacing maces. They already did the most damage-per-hit out of the normal melee weapons, but it was often not enough to make up for their slow attacks.

The changes to how Sharpness works have a large effect on axes, cementing their role as the slow but hard hitting weapon they are supposed to be.

Bows and crossbows share a similar dynamic to swords and axes, with bows being the slow firing but hard hitting ranged weapon, while crossbows are more agile and fast-paced, but lacking in impact.

While the addition of the Quiver works as a solution to the ammo economy of these weapons, there was still a large imbalance in their damage profiles.

In addition to the changes listed above, bows and crossbows have also had their damage randomness removed, so your arrows will now be much more consistent in damage. (Though the damage still depends partly on the angle and velocity of the shot, so keep that in mind.)

The changes to how Power is distributed on crossbows also means they are much more viable without heavily relying on enchantments like Double Tap or Multishot.

These weapons are receiving the largest changes to any sandbox element in Fragment's history, so expect further tweaks once players have got to play around with them.

The changes to Sharpness scaling meant that tridents ended up having identical damage to axes, along with a slightly faster attack speed, longer attack range and a thrown attack. Because of this, tridents have had their base melee damage reduced by one, setting them nicely between swords and axes on damage-per-hit and attack speed.

This is a good start, and while these changes bring trident melee attacks where I want them to be, there is still more work to do.

The trident's biggest issue is how clunky they are to use, with them having the chance to despawn completely if the user dies while it is in the air. This is not good (obviously), and is the next priority in terms of weapon type update, but it is outside the scope of 2.2.0. (See you in 3.0.0...)

Maces are currently Fragment's newest weapon type, and it is safe to say they have not made much of an impact on the weapon sandbox.

While the changes to maces themselves are on the lighter side this update, they are getting some much needed enchantment variety that has made them viable options in skilled hands.

The problem remains that they are heavily dependent on the combat arenas, or player loadout to give you those juicy slam attacks. Even in the 2.2.0 sandbox, I don't think they're quite consistent enough to use as a "primary" weapon type, but they are quite strong under the right circumstances.

This system will have some differences based on the activity/difficulty. For example, while you can normally wait for the automatic respawn timer to revive you, in Dungeons, you can only be revived using the Revive dummy. (If one exists. If it doesn't, the timer ticks down normally.)

In select activities, like Hard Mode Dungeons, this system will also reintroduce the Imminent Failure bar, with major changes.
In these activities, when a Revive dummy spawns, Imminent Failure will begin, giving your allies a countdown to revive you, or the entire team will be wiped. This also means that death in Hard Mode Dungeons is no longer permanent, since your team will now be able to revive you.

This system will initially only be tested in Dungeons, but will possibly be implemented into all multiplayer activities once more feedback has been gathered in game.

That's all for now.

I know I say this every time, but development on 2.2.0 is still steadily progressing. The list of things left to do is shrinking faster than it is growing, and the essential systems and new enemy types are almost entirely finished, and though there's still work to do on the destination, it's content is mostly locked in now, so every are completed gets us closer to release.

I still do think that the overall size of 2.2.0 is smaller compared to Awakening, but it definitely isn't small either. I've been asked why it isn't 3.0.0, and while I can't disclose exactly why, it relates to the structuring of the story with each release.

Anyway, enough about that, it's time I got back to work.

See you next time.