2020 Developer Road Map

Greetings. This is Tree of Savior Development Team. 

 

In this post, we would like to review the core objectives of 2019 Road Map and introduce our long-term goals. We selected “Social”, “Community”, “Casual” as keywords for the next development theme for Tree of Savior. In addition, we will work on the system stabilization as well.

 

2019 Road Map Core Objectives Review

 

The keywords for 2019 were “Lag”, “Lateral Farming”, “Casualization”. 

 

 

First, we optimized the game by changing the battle calculation from the Interpreter type to Native Code type and solving the main bottleneck sections. This attempt resulted in improving calculation speed, which loads less stress on the server during the battle where a lot of multi-hit skills are used. Currently, we are under development for improving the battle calculation furthermore, along with improving the rendering speed of the client and the reformation for accurate movement synchronization. The reformation for the movement synchronization will change the TCP connection to the UDP connection, and it is about 90% completed. We will conduct several tests before we apply this reformation to the live server. 

 

Second is the Lateral Farming. We were aiming to provide a better approach to various items with less stress. Turned out that our approach was not successful. We believe that this result is due to the unbalance between the difficulty and the rewards, and the expensive price to customize the items. We are planning to improve this situation during 2020. 

 

The last, Casualization is still undergoing objective. The term Casualization does not necessarily mean easy contents. It means there is no fixed way to achieve a specific goal. We want you to achieve your goal whether you are in a party or guild or doing it alone, even if it takes longer than doing it as a group. We believe the current casual contents are successful as many Saviors are enjoying them, but the rewards from the Boruta are not as successful as the other casual contents. Therefore, we are planning to improve on the rewards from the Boruta in the future. 

 

Keyword

1. Social / Community

 

We have been developing mainly on the systems and contents related to battle. We developed the Guild Housing on top of the battle, but it wasn’t satisfactory. We believe this dissatisfaction was due to lack of communication between the participants, which led to less party playing and satisfaction. 

We are planning to improve the Tree of Savior experience by providing housing and other contents for the communication element. 

 

2. 2nd Archetype

We are planning to develop brand new contents. We want to avoid too much action and enhance asynchronous multiplayer experience. We haven’t come up with specific content but we are thinking about defense mode, co-op survival, asynchronous competition, and team contents. We hope this new content will balance with the battle contents and relieve the fatigue in addition to new motivation and sense of accomplishment. We will write another post when this project becomes solid.

 

Casual

 

The idea of casual in us is to provide an opportunity with less limitation. We wish you can accomplish your goal even if it takes longer than accomplishing it in a party or guild. If you want to achieve your goal faster, you can do it as a party or guild. Our new Casual version Raids from previous updates diminished the burden to be in a party. We updated the Mercenary Badge Shop and Weekly Boss Raid in order to lessen the limitation to acquire the rewards from Boruta. We will update or add casual versions of contents which do not meet our idea of Casual Contents one by one. 

 

 

System Stabilization

 

1. Network Structure Reformation

 

Tree of Savior is using TCP for the movement system. TCP uses a larger load than UDP, which makes it less suitable for accurate data transfer such as character movement. Therefore, we are reforming the network structure for the movement system with UDP. We are almost finished with this task, only some minor errors to fix before applying it to the live game. We expect this reformatting will fix a lot of asynchronous position and movement problems. 

 

2. 64bit Migration

 

Tree of Savior has been servicing for 4 years. The game is accumulating resources consistently. This increases the required system resource and the memory requirement for the game is almost at the maximum limit for the 32bit environment. We believe optimization within the 32bit system is also hitting the wall. Therefore, we are working on a migration to a 64bit system. The migration is about 70% done. We will do several stability tests when the migration is done and once the game is stable in a 64bit environment, we will apply it to the live game. 

 

Class

 

1. New Classes and Remakes

 

There are 5 professions and 80 classes in Tree of Savior, sums up to 85 classes in one game. We are balancing the classes with patches, but more classes make the development and maintenance much more difficult. Also, we found that some classes are unsatisfactory in concept, performance, and data management. Therefore, we are thinking to reduce the development of new classes and remake the existing classes. 

 

We are currently undergoing analysis on sorting out which class to remake based on overall performance via statistics and data. The remake will keep the advantages and appeal and bridge the gap of the class. Some remakes could replace the class concepts, skills, and attributes to almost like new class. Also, there are less classes for the Archer and Scout profession than Swordsman, Wizard, and Cleric, so we are considering adding new classes for those two professions.

 

2. New Arts

 

The purpose of the [Art] system is not only to improve the skill performance like [Enhanced Upgrade] but also to provide unconventional experience by applying another special effect, changing the property or visual, and altering the play style of the original class. We are planning to release 1 new Art per class (85 at the moment) throughout the entire year. 

 

3. Balance

 

Class balance is now our regular project as new classes and Arts are released. Our current main balance objective is to improve the weak points of classes, but we are also considering the improvement of usability. The usability is not simply meaning easy use. It includes all the rewards and fun and experience from various synergies between classes. 

 

 

If the class is considered difficult, such as hard to achieve synergy or it takes a long time to take effect, the reward will be more abundant.

 

Item Supply

 

We want to design various means to obtain an item so that you can acquire your wanted item from any content you play. Our ultimate goal is to give you as much choice as possible on how to obtain your desired item. You can choose to play various unwanted contents but it could save the required time and effort to acquire your desired item. Or, you can choose to play only your favorite contents: it will require you a little more time and effort than playing all contents, but you will eventually get what you want. 

 

Item Option Variation

 

We will release special effects for the legend items in Episode 12. The legend items from Episode 12 will be 2 types, and each type will have its own special option. You should be able to choose the legend item with proper option for your desired content. 

 

The Set Stats will be either versatile or specialized. The versatile Set Stats will be less efficient than the specialized ones but can be used on all kinds of contents. The specialized Set Stats will be efficient to certain contents, but will show less efficiency in the other kinds of contents.

 

 

Enhanced Social and Information Sharing

 

We believe current battle focused systems and relatively weak community elements could limit the MMORPG Tree of Savior experience and we are looking for the improvement. We started with invigorating the Guild community, but it seems limited invigoration to the big guilds as the current system is concentrated on the battle and farming. 

 

Therefore, we are looking for ways to create a healthy community even if you are not part of a big guild but in a small group or targeting non-battle contents. 

 

1. Private Lounge

 

Currently we have only Guild Housing, but it is bound to the guild, governed by the guild, and operates as a guild meeting room. There’s a little sense of communication, but it requires to be part of a guild. We believe this is a limited communication element, so we are planning to implement the Private Lounge as a new center of communication at the individual level.

 

The Private Lounge will be easy to enter. Various themes will be available and you may reposition or replace the furniture in your Private Lounge. You can promote your Persona Housing so that people can visit your lounge and begin communication with various people. 

 

 

※ Please note that this is a concept screenshot. Any aspect in the image can be changed in the future.

 

2. Guild Objective Diversification

 

We believe that the current guild objective is focused on battle due to the Guild Quest rewards, such as GTW and Boruta. We think that these rewards are very intuitive, which ranks diverse guilds and commits polarization. 

 

We believe guilds which aim other than battle also deserve to grow into big guilds, so we are developing Guild Hangout based activities to attract Saviors of similar interest. We have crafting, trading, and non-battle achievements on the table. We will write another post once the development is on course. 

 

3. Game Information Accessibility Enhancement

 

We believe current information sharing is relying on the guild communication and out-game community. We think there should be much easier ways to gather information, therefore, we are developing an in-game system to provide information. This is to support both new and returning Saviors with appropriate introduction to the systems, contents, and history of the updates for character promotion and item farming. 

 

Also, we are planning to create an open party system where you can register a party for certain content and gather other Saviors to improve the current party gathering system within guild or by shout. 

 

Scenario Contents Improvement

 

We are preparing contents related to the post-Episode 12 scenario and planning to release a portion of it as soon as possible. This will bring people around the Tree of Savior World and unveil some previously unsolved lores. 

 

1. Improve Probability of the new Raid Scenario

 

We are preparing a new raid similar to the Lepidoptera Junction from Episode 11. The related Class Master will request your help and involve more deeply with the content. We believe this will impress you and improve your experience with the story of the raid. 

 

2. Orsha Renewal

 

We will bring the Beholder for the next scenario. The new scenario will be held in the reformed Orsha and some quest regions. Upon the renewal of Orsha, we are preparing a reformation of the world map according to the Episodes. 

 

3. Developing Scenario based on NPCs

 

We will use NPCs more actively when developing new contents or quests. Especially the Goddesses you can encounter only in the quests or the wandering Tel Harsha will join the scenario and events. 

 

<Tel Harsha, the keeper of Irredian Shelter>

 

Thank you for reading the 2020 Tree of Savior Development Road Map.

 

※ Please note that all contents, concepts, values, and plans from this post may change in the future.