[2023] Dauntless | The Road Ahead Developer AMA

Originally posted by Puzzled-Food1268

My only question is will equipping two weapons give you extra cell slots? Or will you reduce slots on weapons/only give the effects of held items?

Originally posted by sseltnuad

So jn did a little state on the following on discord last Thursday but I still wanted to ask. Can you tell us anything or is there just mayyyyyybe something planed for Underwater combat and by that also for community requested Water and Air aether frequencies? No doubt the development of to completely new aether frequencies with new environments and Behemoths would require a great update maybe evenly sized as the „The Shattered Isles“ Update and as you stated after next summer you want to come back to monthly updates. And I know this would consider much time, but is there a possibility that in the future some time around we might see those two elements with a big patch? After all me myself and many others here on reddit did posts on the topic and also created very decent concepts for Behemoths, themed islands and combat systems…would love to know your thoughts about that.

Originally posted by Nugget_System

Though cells will be more secondary, will they still bring uniqueness to builds & will they still maintain an identity to a build for it to perform well in your guys' vision with the new weapon system?

Originally posted by Threef

Nearly all presented changes are system design changes or _just_ programming features and improvements. And with confirmation that we'll be not getting a lot of cosmetics, it seems like art team is not on board with that huge patch. Is that correct?

Originally posted by 898CronoZeus

How would, with the new weapon system getting added, level up. Would it be the same system, or different?

Would the behemoths be able to free roam, so you can use bait (like pursuits), and if so, would the behemoth be able to fight each other?

How would the new exotics work, and will there be new equipment like variants of armor for dires, lanterns, and Omnicells?

Originally posted by Ecresrylca

Mentioned as being in the works in the past but is there going to be added for old slayers to utilize the overabundance of parts that they have collected that aren't being used after weapons are all crafted?

Originally posted by Distinct_Elephant_84

With the announcement of changes coming to Dauntless next summer, myself, and probably many other slayers, welcome the idea of these changes as the state of Dauntless currently is stale.

Dauntless is chucked full of potential and many players have been hoping for some time for the Devs to breathe new life into the game.

So my question is, given the state of Dauntless and how the Devs have seemingly not bothered much with the progression of the game itself, is Dauntless a project that the Devs are actually passionate about and want to see flourish?

I have played a fair few MMOs and it is does become quite apparent when a dev team may not be as invested in a gaming project as much as they could be, as this is what really makes any gaming project shine and become something that players truly enjoy, when the development team are behind the project 100%.

Originally posted by Distinct_Elephant_84

With the announcement of changes coming to Dauntless next summer, myself, and probably many other slayers, welcome the idea of these changes as the state of Dauntless currently is stale.

Dauntless is chucked full of potential and many players have been hoping for some time for the Devs to breathe new life into the game.

So my question is, given the state of Dauntless and how the Devs have seemingly not bothered much with the progression of the game itself, is Dauntless a project that the Devs are actually passionate about and want to see flourish?

I have played a fair few MMOs and it is does become quite apparent when a dev team may not be as invested in a gaming project as much as they could be, as this is what really makes any gaming project shine and become something that players truly enjoy, when the development team are behind the project 100%.

Originally posted by Distinct_Elephant_84

With the announcement of changes coming to Dauntless next summer, myself, and probably many other slayers, welcome the idea of these changes as the state of Dauntless currently is stale.

Dauntless is chucked full of potential and many players have been hoping for some time for the Devs to breathe new life into the game.

So my question is, given the state of Dauntless and how the Devs have seemingly not bothered much with the progression of the game itself, is Dauntless a project that the Devs are actually passionate about and want to see flourish?

I have played a fair few MMOs and it is does become quite apparent when a dev team may not be as invested in a gaming project as much as they could be, as this is what really makes any gaming project shine and become something that players truly enjoy, when the development team are behind the project 100%.

Originally posted by Cookie1058

Will there be damage effects for radiant and umbral? Like how doing so much terra does healing and how so much shock shocks a behemoth etc

Originally posted by TogglingTyrant

Will any progress be transferred over when the update in a year drops, slayer's path, cosmetics that were purchased, reforges and so on. Many of us are end game players, just wondering if all the progress we have achieved will be in vain in this new upcoming version of Dauntless?

Originally posted by Vasenkov

Do you see weapon swapping as a way for adding new weapons?

Like weapons which would struggle to be a complete standalone experience in reality of current Dauntless, but could work great paired with one of classic weapons.

Originally posted by KorrupiKid

Got a question from omega135 on discord who couldn't be here for the AMA:

I was wondering if old things would still be relevant or will be added back, as in previous additions like the primal and elder behemoths, the thornbound behemoths, heroic+ behemoths, and if they could be readded into the game in a fresh way like how thunderdeep drask was reintroduced

Originally posted by Icy-Bee-2157

Hey I am so incredibly happy that you are back and also with such great news that the game is far from over and will go on. And if that wouldn’t be enough I read the phrases „dynamic isles“ and „new Hunting experience and pursuit“ AND „open World like“so I am guessing there will be a pursuit like mode…guys thank you so much for listening.

Dauntless because of its core has so much potential and we do have a speedrun, a arcadian, a endless, a mission and a level based game mode. Although after pursuit and patrols went out the game laked on the real hunt based game experience.

My Question is: In bringing this „mode“ and working on more dynamic islands will the 10 original map models come back?(well some of them still exist but emberthorne cove, coldrunner key and the original hades reach where redesigned and I still miss the original designs). I mean the provide a more open worldy like feeling a bigger variation of islands can’t really be that bad and you do have the models of those three og maps…

Originally posted by Icy-Bee-2157

That sounds great Does that mean there still will be like two behemoths on one island with like one of them being the top of the food chain or is it one behemoth or does it even depend on island and behemoth?

Originally posted by GENM_ACT

I was disappointed to learn on the official Discord that there will be no new elements until next summer. I was hoping that things would change when the new Gauntlet mode was added, but in fact it is a very boring mode, and I was even more disappointed when I learned about the above. Is there anything that can be added in small increments instead of all at once?

Originally posted by MrHorris

What past update/rework would you say has been your favorite (and why)?

Originally posted by arcane_mornechui

1. how will cells work on the second weapon? I assume it'll be same armor, and for the purpose of active perks the cells in one wep will be swapped for the cells in the other?
2. how much info, generally speaking, will the community be granted public access to?
3. will the slayer's path remain in the game, and if not what will happen to the perks gained from it?

Originally posted by Crumpled-Receipt

1.) will swapping between weapons have an effect? Like a parry (which would be sick) or attack speed boost. 2.) when can we expect a next behemoth? 3). How do you plan on keeping the game alive?

Originally posted by slender_kitten

Are there any plans to add weapon levels and therefore behemoth levels above level 20?

Originally posted by Xx_Sebas_Xx77

This year will we have updates that will bring a lot of content? Will we ever see more game modes? For example, a way that we are a behemoth and we play it with friends and we have to kill our friends and they kill me. (I hope they understand me)

Originally posted by slender_kitten

Are there any plans to add weapon levels and therefore behemoth levels above level 20?

Originally posted by saiykuu

Are we ever going to see a revamped training grounds? The capabilities we're missing like wounding, dodging and using tonics make it not accurately reflect actual gameplay as well as making it pretty useless for actually testing anything outside of just hitting the behemoth.

How will the secondary weapon play into perk summary and elemental advantage? Will the weapon's unique effect or innate perk work when the weapon is inactive? And would elemental advantage from the current weapon apply to off-field attacks from the other?

Any chance we could get routine updates on development progress until the big update is released? Something aside from an AMA which actually showcases the changes and additions that have occurred in between, to keep players interested and assure us that it's actually coming.

Originally posted by MrHorris

Early on Dauntless was touted as a challenging game where you expressed your skill through your ability to successfully slay a Behemoth, but as time went on it shifted into a bit more of a power fantasy where slaying the Behemoth became a given and skill expression was through how well you slayed a Behemoth. Any plans to shift/embrace where the power fantasy of the game currently stands?

Originally posted by Icy-Bee-2157

By reading your state of dauntless and seeing that you indeed plan on putting the hunting experience and the feeling of a more open world with various options into focus I was wondering:

Do you maybe think about bringing patrols and even expeditions back into the game?

Of course they‘d need to be overworked and given a new purpose but after all for the game to feel more open worldly with various things to do or to make your way through the shattered isles I think those modes might be „a vine addition to your collection“.

Originally posted by Threef

Idea about Damage Cap (and other caps) seems controversial, but I think I like it. There was also a mention of getting rid of "steamrolling the Behemoths", which I like even more. Does that go together? Will the caps be dependent on the Behemoth we're fighting? How will it work?

Originally posted by napta682

Question 1 I understand you probably can't speak much to this, but can you give a vague idea as to what the "weapons with unique identities" will be. Will they be something similar to exotics but slightly different?

Question 2 Have the devs considered giving a category name to weapons like the silver sword and golden claws? It's a very small thing but it would nice to have a way to refer to them as a whole

Originally posted by KorrupiKid

Question from cat.alva on Discord who couldn't attend the AMA

When will the next event weapon (like silver sword and golden claws) be released

Originally posted by Distinct_Elephant_84

With the announcement of changes coming to Dauntless next summer, myself, and probably many other slayers, welcome the idea of these changes as the state of Dauntless currently is stale.

Dauntless is chucked full of potential and many players have been hoping for some time for the Devs to breathe new life into the game.

So my question is, given the state of Dauntless and how the Devs have seemingly not bothered much with the progression of the game itself, is Dauntless a project that the Devs are actually passionate about and want to see flourish?

I have played a fair few MMOs and it is does become quite apparent when a dev team may not be as invested in a gaming project as much as they could be, as this is what really makes any gaming project shine and become something that players truly enjoy, when the development team are behind the project 100%.

Originally posted by Zer0X344

Any plans to add new specials to existing weapons anytime soon? Strikers for example only have adamant bolt, and Titan Crash.

Originally posted by Intelligent-Tap1742

Would weapon switching affect weapon based bounties, like would simply having the weapon equipped count?I'm assuming not but I wanted clarification, like the bounty that says stagger with repeaters, there are only so many options but with weapon swapping we could do it from it just being there??

How will levelling be affected, will both weapons get XP if both or are used in the fight or only the weapon that kills the behemoth and if it goes to both will it be shared 50/50 or 100/100??

And I know it's switching from one weapon type to another but I feel like that opens up space for one handed weapons, just wondering if it's a possibility??

I know I'm technically only allowed 3 but I have a suggestion As a QoL improvement could we get more accurate behemoth health info, like in the journal, not just telling us about the behemoth but also hp, moves etc.

Originally posted by MrHorris

Early on Dauntless was touted as a challenging game where you expressed your skill through your ability to successfully slay a Behemoth, but as time went on it shifted into a bit more of a power fantasy where slaying the Behemoth became a given and skill expression was through how well you slayed a Behemoth. Any plans to shift/embrace where the power fantasy of the game currently stands?

Originally posted by GENM_ACT

You said that "events and activities continue to be plentiful in the run-up to the big update", do you really believe that? There are no attractive events throughout the year and since the addition of Radiant Escalation and Alaila it has been quite boring. People who don't speak English well or aren't enthusiastic don't check what the developers are saying on Discord. Could you please have more transparency and open communication with the players?

Originally posted by GENM_ACT

You said that "events and activities continue to be plentiful in the run-up to the big update", do you really believe that? There are no attractive events throughout the year and since the addition of Radiant Escalation and Alaila it has been quite boring. People who don't speak English well or aren't enthusiastic don't check what the developers are saying on Discord. Could you please have more transparency and open communication with the players?

Originally posted by Impossible-Gap6741

1.Will there be an option to pick the time of day on certain islands,  2.will certain places in ramsgate be getting an upgrade? 3. Do you have plans to do anything with the neutral element in the future?

Originally posted by GENM_ACT

In the meantime, is there anything you can tell us more about the new elements? We don't want to see a repeat of the Gauntlet mistake, so I think we need to listen seriously to our players' opinions and consider our future plans.

Originally posted by WIIU_Awesome

1)Will combat finally get challenging and not frustrating? For the longest part of dauntless self healing has been op. This resulted on making hard challenging content awful...either spam stuff or one shot players. I know a lot of players use this clutch but it should never have been too strong.

2)Will consumables ever get love? Like the grenades and other consumables don't even do anything.

3)The biggest disappointment with reforge update is that we were promised island changes...what we got was rather bad...will this update actually attempt to make them better?A solution i proposed at a time was to combine at least 3-4 maps and make them bigger, more variety, more fauna. Arena behemoths don't feel interactive.

Originally posted by damcrit

Guess I don't really understand the reasoning behind these decisions - how would they benefit the game over simplistic and very much needed Quality of Life updates you could be doing instead, that doesn't need the game to be put on further hiatus that it basically has been for a while now.

The State of Dauntless post isn't really giving much info to go on either, since everything that is listed there can be followed up with a question such as 'like what?' or 'how exactly?', and judging by the promises made on your Trello board in the past, on mechanics you should have improved or added to the game (and a whole array of logical improvements that I don't know if you even considered), I don't really have much hope on anything being delivered, until I actually see them.

And just as an example of QoL update over revamped mechanics, instead of you reworking a whole lot of systems to allow multiple weapons at the same time, why not just simply update to allow switching loadouts without limitation during island hunts? Seems something that would be easy to implement, instead of wasting time and resources on something much more complex over insanely long period of time.

I am honestly going to be annoyed if any of the new progression systems devalue my time and effort I've invested in this game over a few years, as bigger changes to core mechanics should be something that sequels receive. I see a lot of "to heck with the old players, as long as we bring new meat" attitude in most 'games as a service', so I am hoping for the best, but also fearing the worst.

Originally posted by Threef

What's the reason for lack of development in recent months? We have rumours and ideas, but no official statement

Originally posted by Icy-Bee-2157

So that means that depending on the weapon there could also be different combos like one sword has the old sword mechanics and one the new one…same for chain blades etc that sound nice

Originally posted by TogglingTyrant

I have defended you from some of your prior partners here on reddit, I have always given you the benefit of the doubt on issues, needless to say I have shown you loyalty over the years. Now you want to give us a new game, great, I am down with that, I am excited for it to be unveiled in a year. My question is for us players that want to continue to play this game in the meantime (waiting a year), why would you forsake us and give us nothing for a year with no new anything? Why not utilize us and throw some variation of the content yet to come and you will get the feed back that is needed to make the game in a year amazing?! Use everyone in the current game of Dauntless as a soft run, sure major content keep as a surprise, minor content we can help you work out the bugs in the application.

Originally posted by TogglingTyrant

I have defended you from some of your prior partners here on reddit, I have always given you the benefit of the doubt on issues, needless to say I have shown you loyalty over the years. Now you want to give us a new game, great, I am down with that, I am excited for it to be unveiled in a year. My question is for us players that want to continue to play this game in the meantime (waiting a year), why would you forsake us and give us nothing for a year with no new anything? Why not utilize us and throw some variation of the content yet to come and you will get the feed back that is needed to make the game in a year amazing?! Use everyone in the current game of Dauntless as a soft run, sure major content keep as a surprise, minor content we can help you work out the bugs in the application.

Originally posted by Icy-Bee-2157

Adding to the second question of Satisfaction my question:

As you stated in you Post yesterday there are going to be more community-tests; -surveys and -activities which is really great.

As you probably know there are many players who created their own behemoth concepts and shared them on the platforms. I would really love to see(maybe in the future after Summer 2024)community events where people post there concepts to give you inspiration or even to be in a voting with the highest voted Idea being implemented into the game. Not only would the developer-community relationship benefit but it would give the community exactly what they voted for… Would this be something to give a shot?

Originally posted by Southstarlion14

Will there eventually be new gamemodes or other new content for late game players in the future since the game hasn’t had a fulfilling update of new hunting grounds, new omnicells, or even new weapons for awhile

Do you guys plan on doing frequent updates on the game after the summer 2024 update like say every 2-3 months a new behemoth gets added or new armor piece is available to use?

Originally posted by Ecresrylca

With the changes to hunting grounds and the "new" pursuit style hunting will we have a better way to switch between loadouts? The current system of a box for refilling consumables is nice but limited and being able to swap loadouts while staying on the island would be nice

Originally posted by Arcknoc-Enforcer

I do not know if anyone else posted this or not but do you guys have any plans for new exotic weapons in the future, maybe for new or existing behemoths?

Originally posted by Charetta

I still have mixed feelings about the State of Dauntless post and have so many questions, but had to pick a few.

 

1) About the new permanent progression and enhanced core gameplay, is it like an overhaul the same scale as Reforged update where it changed the way we hunt and progress and our current progress will migrate to the new system, or is it just additional content that won't conflict with our current progress (ex. Slayer's Path, Mastery, etc)?

 

2) You mention "surveys and community playtests", does that mean Experimental version on Epic Games will make a return?

 

3) You certainly have heard lots of feedback on the loadout menu, like requests to improve it (reminder it lags switching between each loadout on PS4 while on PC it browses smooth like butter and it doesn't scroll like a carousel from first to last loadout or last to first with a single tap), the ability to name the slots and adding more loadout slots. Is this QoL update a possibility to happen or nah?

Originally posted by MrHorris

What past update/rework would you say has been your favorite (and why)?

Originally posted by Firefly_Girl2016

I realize that Cosmetics aren't important to you guys, but they are the money maker. It seems the ptb shot themselves in the foot. Many of us like our 'digital paper dolls'.

I have everything in the game, have been loyal, but with nothing new coming for a year or so... We already have been teetering.... I'm concerned about many things. Many of us feel our voices have gone unheard. I don't want to leave Dauntless, but the Slayers are important. It seems it will be a brand new game. Will it? Will you be leaving the Slayers that have been and stayed the course with Dauntless in the dust?

Originally posted by GENM_ACT

Dauntless has no way to see and sell their inventory. Any plans to improve this? Behemoth materials and limited currency with few uses are left over, and behemoth materials are rotting and stinking badly.

Originally posted by Icy-Bee-2157

I would really like to participate Will there be a info on how you can try to participate in this testing?