Realmers!
A lot has happened over the past years and it has been a while since we directly talked openly about our development processes. Today we want to share with you some of our upcoming plans for Realm of the Mad God, but also reflect on the last year and what we have done so far. Realm has come a long way over the past years and we are just getting started!
In this team letter, you will find out about our largest projects currently in work like Equipment Rarity, a new Realm Expansion with a World Boss, and a brand new endgame dungeon. We have more in store for all of you, but not everything is yet ready to be shared. Make sure to check out our upcoming Testing Sessions and Teasers on our Social Media Channels in the future. So better follow us everywhere to make sure you are not missing out!
Realm Rework
Hello Gamers, Triton here!
Almost a year ago, we launched the Realm Rework open beta. This was a major undertaking for the Realm Team, and we appreciate the invaluable feedback, bug reports, and suggestions provided by our closed testers and UGC partners throughout this journey. We’d like to extend special thanks to Mizumi for their significant contributions in crafting numerous realm encounters and for their openness to feedback.
Although the Realm Rework was officially released last Oryxmas, we’re committed to ongoing improvements with each release. Please continue to share your suggestions and feedback with me on the official discord. We couldn’t have achieved this without your support, and we hope you’ll join us for what’s next!
Equipment Rarity
Back in 2023 we first introduced Enchanting to the game, the original launch was a little rocky and needed a rework. Unfortunately that rework, while far better, still didn’t set up the system for the kind of expansion we wanted the game to have. Now it is time to finally improve the system and other related systems to really reach the impact that enchanting was supposed to have on the game.
Deca Dystratix here, I am back working at DECA and on RotMG after about a year and a half away working on another project. You probably remember me for a few things, mainly Kogbold Steamworks, large item balance patches and more specifically nerfing Crystal Shield. I am excited to be working on a new core itemization expansion through this addition to the enchanting system.
Item Rarity
The largest part of this update is going to be the item rarity system. All pieces of equipment will now be able to roll with multiple enchanting slots. All equipment, not just tiered. When an item is obtained it has a chance to roll as a higher rarity, with each rarity corresponding to a number of enchantment slots up to 4 on an item.
We want this to shake up the item chase as overtime players have run out of increasing goals for their equipment, in many cases once an item has been acquired there is little reason to keep running that dungeon. If you like an item we want you to be able to try to get even better versions of it, or just be able to show off your rarest item finds to other players. Simultaneously we won’t be balancing around the full 4 slot items as a point of power. Players should not feel pressured to go for the long grind to feel like they meet the standards of power the game is expecting from them.
While we want to increase the potential for you to chase these rare versions of items, we also think the base rarities of UTs have been too high. Build and gameplay-defining items shouldn’t take a hundred or more runs of a dungeon to get. We will be increasing the rate of all base drop rates of UTs across the game, roughly doubling the rate for most items.
Enchanting and Artifacts
With up to 4 slots available there will be some changes to how enchanting works. Generally enchanting works how you expect it, you can reroll an item for a new set of random enchantments. Since there are multiple slots now some enchantments will not be compatible to roll with other specific enchantments. Additionally, enchantments now have weight values allowing us to tune the specific rarity of certain enchants and create rarer unique enchantments for players to be excited about. To promote interacting with the enchantment system, the cost for enchanting will no longer be increased every time you try to roll an item so you are free to roll as many times as you’d like to perfect your item. UT items can also roll any of the normal enchantments and are not locked to only engravings.
To allow you more control over the innate randomness of enchanting we are also adding a new type of item called Artifacts. When rolling enchantments on an item you will be able to consume Artifacts to influence the roll, for example, one Artifact may make all attack modifiers 10x more likely to roll. These Artifacts will act as a new reward type that should be common enough to use often but not drop every run like potions.
When this system launches we will also be providing a public list of all enchantments/artifacts and their properties and weights so players can have a much better time planning their enchantments.
Forge & Advanced Dungeons
Coming with the equipment rarity update will be some additional changes to the Item Forge to make it work alongside the enchanting system as a way to recycle your unwanted items to try and potentially make items with higher slot counts. Advanced dungeons will also be getting updates, converting their engravings over to the artifact system and giving them higher chances at enchanted items than their normal dungeon counterparts.
As a heads up, current engraved enchantments are going to be made into legacy versions, and not all of them will continue to be available in the future, but if you acquire them now you will still have access to those items after equipment rarity.
Awakening of the Primals
It has been nearly 5 years since the release of Oryx’s Sanctuary, and while some of you still have many Exaltations to gain from non-snake bosses, I hope you are as restless as we are for the next stage.
Hello, I’m Nanomi, and I go by Decanano in-game. I created most of the features in S17 – Totalia’s Trick-o-Treat! and worked heavily on Realm Rework. I’m happy to release this new endgame content expansion within the year, featuring the ancient and mysterious spirits of the Realm known as the Primals.
Grave of Eden
In the waning years of the Primal Era, the Primal avatars dedicated a sacred garden as the place of beauty within the tumultuous world ravaged by the elements. This sanctuary was known as Eden, a safe haven for all beings born of the Realm. Yet Eden has all been but forgotten, quietly waiting for souls to witness the ancient world within.
Grave of Eden is an endgame island isolated to the west side of the mainland and will be a permanent addition to the Realm. Liberate beacons, unlock the secrets of the Temples of the Primals, and eventually awaken the titanic all-new World Boss slumbering within the island…
Eternity Summit
The devoted gazed in horror as his lord was slain, struck down by a fabled legend believed to be the first Exalted One. Fleeing the top of the mountain, he devised a plan to return to his master, sacrificing the essence of countless souls to amass the great energies to awaken his deity. For thousands of years, he toiled under the one guiding command. “Xil must return.”
Upon the completion of the Grave of Eden, a new threat will rise for the most daring and experienced of adventurers. The Eternity Summit is a new pinnacle endgame dungeon, releasing with the new T15 weapons and armor and powerful UTs to match. Ascend the summit and break free of your mortal limitations to face the power of a living god, the Ancient Dragon Xil.
Raid Tickets
To supplement our endgame content, we’re introducing a new system that aims to help players with less time and friends to break into the endgame. Raid Tickets are a new currency resource that players gain on a timed basis for free allowing them to vastly boost raid-eligible boss rewards at the cost of 1 ticket. Tickets are only consumed as you acquire your rewards, so this system will strive to be easier and more automated than Loot Drop / Accelerators.
For high-intensity challenges, you can use the free tickets as a way of earning plentiful rewards even if you don’t have the time to run dozens of raids. If you’re accustomed to the raid lifestyle, tickets would still allow you to boost content that otherwise wouldn’t be supported through keys, such as Oryx’s Sanctuary, Grave of Eden, and eventually Eternity Summit.
That’s all from me and the designers working on major game expansions planned this year. Let’s take a look at the smaller projects from the Deca team that we plan to ship throughout the year.
Account Levels
Recently, you were able to have a first glance at the Account Level System. Realm of the Mad God in general has some issues with introducing new players into the game. We are working on several things to combat this.
Account Levels show your progress in the game! You earn experience by defeating enemies, completing dungeons, and even death-related character info. As you level up, your account grows, and every time you reach a new level, you’ll get a unique reward! There are different types of rewards, from cosmetics and gameplay items to permanent upgrades like loot and exp boosts, and higher-tier starting gear!
Account Levels are mainly for our newer players to work towards a goal, unlock rewards that help them progress better and safer, and so on.
We have heard your feedback and plan to expand this system in the future for our current endgame and beyond. Right now we are mainly hoping to improve the earlygame, but the system will be expanded in the future and has a lot of potential. We will be able to shape the feature based on your feedback and input.
Steam Achievements
One of the most reported issues that we have are our Steam Achievements. They have not been working since the switch to our Unity Client and a lot of you are confused, especially when first starting out the game, why no Achievements are unlocked when completing them.
We are happy to announce that we are currently having a first look at doing a complete overhaul of the Steam Achievements System. This means adding new Achievements, fixing old ones or even removing them. We don’t have a fixed timeline for this yet, but please be aware that we are actively working on it.
We did a poll recently on our Discord Server and the majority of the community seems to be fine with us wiping the current system to replace it with something new and up to date.
First-Time User Experience Improvements
We noticed that a lot of new players had a hard time understanding the game as the learning curve seems rather steep, which is making things harder than they need to be for new players to understand and enjoy the game. That is why we’ll be working on a new and improved tutorial to make it easier for all of our new players to enjoy the game..
We will also change the way the classes become available, unlocking them through fame and removing the requirement to become proficient at using a previous class that may or may not be appealing to everyone.
By doing this we expect you to unlock the classes in the order you want, without having to play something you might not enjoy.
There are some other improvements that we will be making, the likes of changing loading screens and more.
With this, we hope to improve the early experience of new players and increase the Realm of the Mad God community. We believe that the game is a lot of fun and want new players to experience that without having too much of a hassle learning how to play it.
While not directly aimed at new players, we will keep doing the QoL and Class Modernizations we have done over the past months. While those take time, we want to make sure Classes feel good and fun to play while removing old issues from the game.
Thank You!
We want to take this opportunity to thank all of you. Realm of the Mad God is a rather old game and it’s not normal to have such a dedicated fanbase for such a period of time. We try our best to consider your feedback and your input which is one of the reasons we hold Public Testing Sessions relatively often. While it’s impossible to always follow every feedback, we will continue to try to listen and implement whatever we can to make the game better.
Another thank you goes out to our Closed Testers and Discord Team. Without them developing the game would be way harder and very much different. They allow us to get insight into specific areas we might not always think about and in general help us with a lot of things.
We hope we can continue to deliver some amazing updates in the future and push Realm of the Mad God to an even better version than before. We can’t wait to shape the future together with all of you! You are what makes Realm special.
Let us know what you think of our plans, join our testing sessions and in general, keep giving us feedback! We appreciate your input no matter if it’s positive or negative feedback. If you have any input or questions, just let us know via our social media channels. You can expect Q&As, Teasers and more in the future.
*Coming soon*