EXCESSIVE THANKS

Hello again! Another week, another Pupdate! This time around, we've got a batch of bug fixes, along with a new quest of sorts. I thought we could try something new, and so this week's quest will be one of an evolving nature. More on that after the changelog:

Ephemeral Tale 1.15.3 Changelog

• Sabrina has made her way to the Pond of Respite
• Fixed a bug where it could snow in the Traveller’s Respite
• Fixed a bug where you could lose your tail in the Sunken Summit
• Fixed a bug where very frightening thunder and lightning could occur in the Mute Mountains
• Fixed a bug where benches in the Corrupted Castle had strange Z-ordering
• Fixed a bug where certain chests could award fractional Power
• Fixed a bug where there was a particular chest available twice, causing it to appear as if you had opened it
• Fixed a bug where the color-grading of the Traveller’s Respite could desync
• One of the ghosts in the Caverns now disappears upon finishing the tutorial
• Added rare enemy text prompts to indicate when a rare enemy type is encountered
• Lowered evasiveness of enemies in the Mute Mountains
• Additionally, lowered hit rates in Mute Mountains to match other zones

LOOP (loop, loop)

I thought this week would be a fun time to explore the concept of what a "gameplay loop" is, how the content added to the game needs to fit into that loop, and how you can use that knowledge to ensure that what you're adding is valuable (or even using it at a metric to determine the value of the content you've added).



The above picture is an example of what a "gameplay loop" might look like at a fundamental level. The crucial bit that you should keep in mind is that a gameplay loop is, at its core, the flow of one in-game action to the next. If you're playing a shooter, that loop might be run -> aim -> shoot -> die. Well... that last bit might just be me.

Where games like shooters get their longevity (despite having simple gameplay loops) is by changing the rule-set of the game. Capture the Flag has different intrinsic goals than Team Deathmatch, so while the core loop may be unchanged, the goals of the player while interacting with that loop are re-contextualized and as such take on a different meaning.

In the context of RPGs, this same thing is accomplished by using things as an incentive (read: shiny object dangling in the corner of their sight) to change short term, mid term, or long term goals. That extra dungeon that's harder than the rest? Well, you want to do that dungeon, but need to grind levels to be able to. So now, you go and engage with prior content with a different contextual view of it than before (i.e., you're now focused on efficient EXP per hour or some similar metric versus the original goal of "hey I'm just playing the game") until you're ready to take on that special dungeon.

When designing content, the primary question that needs to be asked is effectively this: "where does this fit into the gameplay loop of this game?"

For Ephemeral Tale, most all of the new content added since the initial release into Early Access has been designed with that question in mind. I even have the gameplay loop featured front and center in the trailer, screenshots, and store description! Explore -> Fight -> Loot.

These quests we've been adding the past few weeks? That falls into Explore! You're re-engaging with existing content for specific reasons in order to achieve something (generally to gain access to an exclusive piece of loot), but it also serves as a way of building the world and letting the player know that things don't have to be super serious all the time. Last week saw you guys diving into an abandoned underwater city to collect a cookie recipe that was lost during a fishing incident with a mermaid. Sometimes, quests just need to be entertaining (that's my justification, and I'm sticking to it).

The extra bosses we've added? Those fit beautifully into the Fight category. New gear? That's Loot. New zones? Zones thankfully fill all three slots! This week though, I wanted to focus on Loot and Fight through a new lens.



This week's quest introduces a new face, Savvy Sabrina! She's quite gifted, and is able to take excess gear you have and turn it into new pieces. Granted, she's not always willing to give it her best effort.

Functionally, what does this mean? This is what I'm viewing as our first "living" quest. As of today, you'll be able to embark on a quest for her to retrieve a cauldron. Once she has that, she can start taking those excess pieces and making some fresh stuff with it. Today, that means 4 pieces of gear of any quality/level to get one of green or blue quality at your current level. Doesn't sound that great, but this is where the "living" part comes in-- next week, you'll be able to embark on another trip for her, and afterwards, you'll find that she creates gear of blue or purple quality.

Generally, this kind of "larger" system would be done in a bigger patch or held off until it's completed, but I thought we'd mix it up and see how you guys feel about this approach. This week, I've been pretty busy between working on the next major content drop (check out our Twitter for deets on that) and this. Balancing act, and all that!

I've gone on for quite some time this week, so I'll leave you guys to it! Until next week, stay safe and have fun!

-- Ryan
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