Free-to-play Monster Hunter-like Dauntless has had a shockingly bad launch on Steam, and developer Phoenix Labs has released a comprehensive roadmap detailing how it plans to fix things.
When I first played Dauntless a few years ago, I thought it was a fun enough Monster Hunter-lite. You explored maps with friends and slayed wandering beasts, using materials they dropped to enhance your weapons and armor. It was a simple system, but it worked. The art style was cute, combat wasn't as deep as Monster Hunter's but it was still enjoyable, and there were plenty of weapons to choose from. The Steam launch that coincided with the full game release and Awakening update did away with most of that.
"Where did all the content go?" asked one angry player after the update went live. The devs explained they wanted to make each weapon more impactful, but to players it felt like they were just getting ripped off and ushered towards the game's monetization. It doesn't help that all progress was reset, so all the hours you spent in the game before have effectively been wasted.
Phoenix Labs acknowledges it "missed the mark," and now it's explaining how things will change going forward. It's a good step, but I have to admit, I'm not convinced the game I once enjoyed is ever coming back.
The roadmap begins with an apology. "With the Awakening update, we know many of you have felt let down. For those who feel your time, effort, and trust were overlooked, we sincerely apologize."
Unfortunately, the system that's arguably been gutted the most, weapon crafting, doesn't look like it has a good future. While the devs recognize its removal has "disrupted the core gameplay loop," plans for the future are vague: "Exploring ways to bring more depth and player agency back to weapon and armor crafting and customization systems."
If you do decide to return to the game, you won't be getting your full progress restored. Instead, you'll be gifted 300,000 Rams, 5,000 Combat Merits, 500 Peerless Aetherite, and all game modes will be unlocked in a future update planned for early next year. It's a far cry short of all the gear you probably spent dozens of hours crafting, but it's a start.
To address monetization concerns, Aetherite claims will be free, and other balance changes have been made to make other currency more accessible and useful, even for those of you who don't spend any money in the game.
These changes are a start, but since Phoenix Labs was bought out last year by a blockchain company which subsequently laid off a bunch of developers, things have gone downhill and don't seem to be getting back on track anytime soon. A former dev even spoke out about the Awakening update, saying "We never would have made decisions that are so blatantly not player-focused."
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