Defiance 2050 - Gamescom Report

We caught up with Rarnok and Meowser at Gamescom and fit as many of your questions as we could into our interview slot.

Please note that this writeup is my interpretation of the interview answers and the quality of the recording, things may change in development or be corrected by the dev team in the future.

Rewards

Thanks to the following lucky winners of Ark Alliance Terranaut Ark Alliance Terranaut codes for their question submissions.

• Cricket
• Mad Master PC-NA
• SmugKitty PC-NA
• Papa easter XBOX360-EU
• GoAddTheNomad

Trouble in Paradise

The first content drop is coming in the fall is titled Trouble in Paradise. It will introduce the Crusader class which has a hammer weapon and abilities like a leap and a vortex.

Additionally there will be a new enemy type and faction (new to 2050, but some enemies are brand new). How players will interact with them is different from how you've seen them before, and they come with a fleshed out story.

Unspecified quality of life updates are planned to release shortly before, or with this update.

Shadows Over Paradise

The next content drop coming in winter, a few months after Trouble in Paradise is titled Shadows Over Paradise, features the same new enemy type as they start taking over the land mass. There will be a new arkfall, and the Engineer class which can construct turrets and a new progression system for all classes.

We don't have a lot of details on the new progression system, but it sounds like it takes elements from the synergy system and cyber rig systems that is attached to your character. Progression starts from the very beginning of gameplay as you build your own set bonus, collect parts to put together, mix and match. More information in future livestreams.

The gameplay will focus on the existing landmass that we have right now. Silicon Valley is still being revamped to be more worthwhile to play in.

PTS

The build is being finalised, and will be coming to PTS shortly before release. Consoles will also need to wait for certification.

Weapon Skins

There is a new weapon skin system coming, which will allow you to unlock the appearance of weapons and apply them to any weapon that uses that particular model (the same icon on the weaponcard).

This system is almost ready, and will unlock similar to outfits.

Dynamic Arkfall Stages

Similar to minor arkfalls, majors are going to have additional dynamic waves based on how quickly the previous waves were cleared.

This system aims to solve problems where there weren't enough enemies to kill during high population events. This is one of the benefits of the new client and platforms, where more enemies and players can be at events.

Rewards will scale similar to sieges, with tiered chests.

The dynamic arkfall stages system may be before the first content drop, or may be packed with it. This will depend on how development, testing and certification goes.

2050 Launch

The launch was pretty crazy as expected and the servers had some issues, stability now is in a pretty good spot. Unfortunately XBox has been getting the short end of the stick due to sieges still being disabled. Sieges will be turned back on once it passes certification.

2050 launch went well but it could have gone better. A lot of the changes were to behind the scenes mechanics and the framework for future content drops. While these mechanics changed things up a little and were fun, it didn't have the depth of the item chase and progression that people expected from a major update, although this content is scheduled.

In comparison client crashes are far less frequent to the older platforms, and people are now enjoying the game on PS4 and XBox One.

Classic Defiance

While the main focus is on ironing out the new updates for 2050, there may be additional updates coming to classic Defiance. Seasonal events will continue and some synergy refreshes may be looked at.

Seasonal events will also be coming to 2050, (unconfirmed but the halloween events are the next in line based on the timeline).

Promo Items

Certain weapons that were promo items weren't transferred over to 2050, for example the Trove block gun. Unique items like these are possibly going to be released as prototypes in the future.

Clans

Clans are in a good spot right now, but they are looking into new aspects of clan progression as these values haven't really been adjusted from the original.

Clan sizes were decreased due to the impact on performance, updates were broadcast to all players of the clan and very large clans had problems. 

Group UI

There isn't really a need to show level on the group UI anymore, can look at displaying the class, ego rating, and making sure the shield / health / armor bars are appropriately shown.

Classes

There isn't a listed class with the third update, but new classes are planned. 

Classes aren't locked to the character as with some games because each class can use any weapon, and it would just be repeating the item chase.

There is an issue when you respec a class that it resets any other loadouts with the same class, and can be looked at with the new progression system as adjustments are being made to tie their new THING, to the class.

Ark Keys

Original plan was to keep them in limited supply, but now they are looking at additional ways to get them, or to get them earlier, or that everyone has a minimum (SOMETHING - BAD AUDIO).

Weapon Enhancement

Clicking lots of times to enhance your weapon is a pain, they are also looking at previewing the imapct of salvage on the enhancement bar, so you can see how far the bar will fill with the salvage you have selected.

Also likely is a button for auto level, or mass dump salvage.

Pursuit Rewards

No real review planned, but some rewards aren't showing all of the rewards on the UI, so we may not really understand everything that we get. Ark Hunter Commendations seem to be hidden for some.

New pursuits will come with the content drops.

Arena Super Weapons

Super Weapons in some of the arenas have been removed, since they were tied to the older weapon system in Defiance they were broken. You can still do the arenas with your own weapons.

Dark Matter Monolith Killing Blows Pursuit

It shouldn't require absolute killing blows anymore, and should be within a kill window, but they can look into it.

Unlocking slots using in-game currency

Things like unlocking character slots and loadouts are probably going to the commendation vendor.

Grenades and Shields

Right now grenades and shields are part of the way to gain scrip, but they are looking at ways to clear them from your inventory when you aren't at a vendor.

Eventually they may have their own enhancement system, which might lead to them breaking down to salvage and upgrading.

Co-op Missions

New co-op missions may happen in the future, but none are in the works right now. Most people play the open world content, and so that is their focus right now.

PvP

Wishes they had more time to work on it, there are some bugs with the scaling systems that some people are using to do things they aren't meant to do. Will require some cleaning up. Similar comment to co-op missions is that PvP isn't the primary activity of most ark hunters, so priority is lower.

Prototypes

Will be added as often as they can be, people are obtaining the RNG prototypes pretty quickly. Newer ones probably wont rely as much on the random element.

They have 4 or 5 new ones that are ready to go, and will be maintaining a pace like that. They need to figure out the best mix between brand new weapons and bringing back some of the older ones.