Stormgate Developer Update: The Road Ahead for Co-Op

Hi there Stormgaters!

Are you ready for another update on the road ahead for Stormgate from the Frost Giant Studios development team? Kaizen and the rest of the design team were kind enough to share some insight into what they’re planning for our 3P Co-op missions, which we’re pleased to share with you today.

First, a thank you. The sheer amount of feedback, bugs, and engagement the team has received since the release of Early Access has been staggering, but in a good way. The feedback helps the team prioritize what matters most to our players and we’re working hard to not only bring you new content, but to also deliver better content. Let’s dive in.

3v3 + Co-Op = BFFs?

You have recently heard us talk about it, but we’re extremely excited about our new upcoming 3v3 mode. That said, we also want to calm any fears you may have about how this might impact our beloved 3P Co-op missions. Co-op is still very much a mode we love and are continuing to develop. We’re still talking about how things like Hero progression and unique units will factor into both experiences (or if they even should?), but we’re committed to making both modes feel fun, in a separate but harmonious way.

Here Comes A New Challenger!

Weekly Challenges–a 3P co-op mission with a unique set of twists or “mutations” will be coming in 0.1.0, our first content update slated for September 19. We can’t wait to see who climbs to the top of the leaderboards… that we are working on right now (please bear with us as our code generation APM has a limit).

Progression

Several of you have already maxed out ALL of our Co-op Hero levels. Please accept a virtual high-five from all of us here at Frost Giant: ( ⌒o⌒)人(⌒-⌒ )

Level 15 is absolutely NOT the end for Hero progression however, as we are continuing to work on standing up Levels 16-20 with accompanying Gear, to give you even more options for Hero customization loadouts. We’re also looking into account progression, and while we don’t have details for you yet, we’re eager to share them with you as soon as possible.

Major shout-out to Feature_Minimum (aka Stormy Norrie) for sharing his look at our Gear system with the Reddit community and following it up with a Gear tier list video.

We’ve heard the feedback about our Gear progression system being “hidden” in the UI and are thinking of ways to share what it is and how it works in our client. Please keep the feedback coming!

AFK Busting

We realize it’s a huge bummer to finally get into a game only to realize two of your allies have disconnected. Rejoin (which is included in our 0.1.0 release)  is a good start for encouraging players to finish the games they start, and we’ve got a few more tools on the way. We are experimenting with Early Surrender voting for players who feel that they’re too far behind in a given game and want to give up and hop back into the queue. We’re also looking at XP redistribution for players who don’t mind the extra challenge of playing while down a teammate or two. We see you out there, “solo challenge” players!

More Ways to Gain XP

For the rest of you, we’ve seen you fight through performance struggles and weird bugs, leavers, long queues, and cold nights, all for those sweet, sweet XP gains. We want to level up right along with you and are working on other ways for you and your teammates to earn more experience. A new-and-improved experience system is coming to our Co-op missions, but even more is on the horizon. Here’s what we’re adding for now:

Base XP

Winning, losing, and killing units is a good baseline for gaining XP, but we want to do more. Objective-based XP gains are coming.

Bonus XP

We’re working toward granting XP for playing the weekly challenges, and will be exploring more ideas for Difficulty-based multipliers.

Boost XP

Players in Korea who play in internet cafes (aka PC Bangs) can enjoy XP progression boosts. We think these are pretty cool and we want to spread the love to players around the world through other means. We’ve got lots of ideas for how to share these boosts: “Playing with Friends” multipliers, activatable Timed XP boosts, maybe even include them in Warchests, too. We’re looking at lots of options here.

Bounty XP

Weekly Challenges are just the beginning - we’ll be adding lots more ways for you to complete objectives by playing games, including things like First Win of the Day and Monthly Bounties.

Hero News

We’ve heard it, and we agree: Amara’s OP, Maloc skips leg day, and Auralanna’s Cryo Tanks are a bit rough. While we can’t make Maloc start squatting in the gym, we can at least start improving our Heroes over time–again, thanks for all of your feedback! For this upcoming release, we focused on Auralanna, Blockade, and Warz.

Auralanna starts with two Stasis Cores now and has a new Ultimate Ability called Meteor Shower that slows enemies, strips off their armor, and creates a slowing field. We’ve also made it so Sabers can be transmuted into Cryo-Tanks, which remove enemy armor.

Blockade is tankier now, with more health, armor, and energy. His Revitalize ability now heals himself at level 1 and can be autocast. We’ve also made it so his Guardsmen are more powerful vs. Air.

Warz’s Void Goo explosions are more than three times stronger now. We also found that we needed to adjust the sheer number of Fiends he could have at a time, so they now have a 60 second lifespan. Warz’s Fiends now have the Void Goo trait. His Gaunts also deal additional damage vs. Air.

And don’t worry, Amara and Maloc will get a similar level of love and attention in the future.

Introducing: Kastiel

We had so much fun creating Kastiel–our angelic space vampire. We hope you’re looking forward to playing with him as much as we are.

Kastiel has been a treat to design and playtest. Culling friends and foes alike to empower his Nethersword makes being bad feel very good. While most Celestials revere and protect Animus as sacred, Kastiel exploits it as just another resource to further his own ambitions.

As beefy as he is, he’s missing valuable healing from his kit that allying with other Heroes can provide: Kastiel and the Animus-loving life-preserving healer and protector Auralanna are (unsurprisingly) not on good terms, but for some reason they work really well together on a team.

We’ve especially been enjoying exploring Kastiel’s use of Animus. Resource management isn’t often the highlight of an RTS experience. Not to mention Luminite, Therium, and Celestial Power (and just a touch of Nether) are already quite a bit to think about with his faction! We feel pretty excited with where we landed with Kastiel–unlike the Infernals, who use Animus across their entire faction, Kastiel has only one unit that uses Animus: enter the Arkhos Arcship.

Kastiel’s an expert on using any resource to achieve his means, and the Arkhos Arcship is his Ultimate weapon. The Arkhos Arcship has an Affinity Link to Kastiel, giving it the ability to soar across the playing field at top speeds…for a massive warship. It siphons Animus from fallen enemies to power its Soul Cannon, which can fire globally across the map to deal devastating damage and heal itself. Not in the mood for a fight? The Arkhos can also transmute the Animus in corpses and trees into Therium and Luminite - anything’s a resource if you’re willing to do whatever it takes to live to fight another day. The Orphan of Wintros knows this better than anyone.

Thanks so much for checking in with us to learn more about our future plans for Stormgate and our 3P Co-op missions. One of our goals for Stormgate is to create an RTS that is fun to play with friends, which is what this mode is all about. We hope you enjoy the progress we’re making and look forward to sharing even more with you in the months to come.

Good luck and have fun!