Roadmap Progress Report
Hello Townies!
We are 2 months into the Town of Salem 2 Early Access and it's time to check in on how things are going. We announced our Early Access Roadmap to let players know what the intentions were and where the game was headed. So, let's go over the progress we've made, what has been done, and what is there still to do.
Also, keep an eye out for a big announcement this Friday, July 28th!
Role Balance / Role Reworks (on-going)
A big focus for our Early Access has been the roles. We want to make sure each role is fun, balanced, and has a unique feeling to playing them. To that end, we did a number of role balance changes, and even reworked several roles. While not all of the changes are mentioned, a summary of the recent major changes is below.
Town Roles
Reworks
Trickster - Trickster may visit a player at night and play a trick on them, taunting that player into attacking them if able. If a Trickster is attacked by a player they taunted, the Trickster will counter-attack with a Powerful Attack.
Balance Changes
Spy - Bugs now persist until triggered
Seer - Cannot target revealed town roles anymore
Coven Roles
Reworks
Wildling Reworked - Now sees who their target visits and who visits their target. Can also overhear whispers. Updated Wildling achievements.
Neutral Roles
Reworks
Pestilence, Horsemen of the Apocalypse - When transformed, all Plague will transform into pestilence. At 3 stacks of pestilence a player will succumb to pestilence and die. When a player visits they will spread a stack of pestilence. When a player visits the Horseman, they will gain a stack of pestilence. When Pestilence, Horsemen of the Apocalypse visits someone they will not attack and instead will add the maximum stacks of pestilence to their target.
Werewolf - New Ability: Permanently remember the scent of their target on human nights. Once a Werewolf has the scent of a target they will be able to track who their target visits each night.
Balance Changes
Doomsayer - Gains invincible defense the night they successfully doom 3 players.
Pirate - Gains invincible defense upon winning 2 duels. Each successful duel plunders the target, even if the target survives.
Executioner - Must now choose a target on night 1 and cannot change targets unless their target dies. Executioners can use their new special ability to choose a priority target for Torment.
Soul Collector - Collecting a soul is an Astral visit.
Shroud - Attacks their Shrouded target if that target fails to visit anyone.
War, Horseman of the Apocalypse - Immense speed and combat prowess allowed him to visit 2 players each night and is roleblock immune. War will attack a Jailor that jails him
Plaguebearer - Night priority increased above base priority. This allowed PB to visit before most roles in the game and spread plague before other roles visit. This change increased the rate of plague spreading as well as making it more consistent.
Cauldron (in progress)
The Cauldron system is still in progress. Cauldron will allow players to get a small reward of Town Points every day they log in by adding potions to the Cauldron. After 7 days of adding potions, the Cauldron will be ready. Then, players will get a larger reward of a random type. This could be a Character, House, Pet, bundle of scrolls, etc.
Players can also control the type of reward they get by adding one of several special purchased potions to the Cauldron before activating it.
This will be coming soon!
Reconnect (in progress)
The Reconnect system is actively being worked on and is one of our top priorities. This will allow players to automatically reconnect from 'hiccups' in their internet connection, and be able to recover from a longer disconnect or a game crash.
While it is important to be able to recover from long disconnects, there will be a limit to reduce exploitive behavior.
Dead Play (Complete, more coming)
Ghost games have been added that can be accessed while a player is dead. These are mini-games that let players either Death Bet or Death Roll. Death bets allow players to bet their Ghost Points (gained from dying) on who they think will be the next to die. Death rolls is a fun minigame where two players can face off to try to roll random numbers and not hit 0.
We hope to add more things for the Ghosts to do.
Interactables (on-going)
More interactable housing items are coming soon! There are currently 2, the bed and the candles. We are working on new ones to give houses more personality.
Party System (Complete, improvements coming)
The Party system is in place and allows players to group up and play together. There are improvements still to make to the system, such as allowing the party to easily re-group after a game.
Art (in progress)
New artwork is coming in all the time and being added. Silhouettes are still being created, as well as new cinematics.
Leavers (in progress)
With the improvements to performance, connectivity, and the pending reconnect system, a Leaver Buster system is in the works. Reports have been helpful in dealing with intentional or repeat leavers but this system will help us reduce the amount of people leaving the game intentionally, while the Reconnect system will reduce unintentional leaving.
Chat and UI Improvements (nearly complete)
Chat and UI have had huge improvements done to them over Early Access. Most notably, chat performance is about to have a huge increase. We are always gathering feedback on more UI and chat improvements that could be done.
Host Options (complete)
Host Options are here in the form of Modifier cards for Custom games. Hosts will be able to add things such as Slow Mode, Fast Mode, 1 Trial per Day, Anon voting, Secret Killers, Hidden Roles, and more.
Improved Performance (on-going)
Performance is something that is never really 'finished', however we have made great strides in getting our game to run smoother on more systems. A huge improvement to chat performance is right around the corner and is being tested both internally and by players who opt-in to try it.
Ranked (in progress)
Ranked games require a ton of testing, balance and feedback to get right. The Ranked Practice mode has done a lot for us in terms of getting information about win rates and balance. As roles have changed and have been improved, those win rates have changed. Our goal is to have Season 1 Ranked available not long after our full release.
Thank you all for helping to make this game the best it can be. Keep an eye out for more coming soon!