Cryowarriors! As promised, we’re providing the insightful Gaming AMA that was held in Discord on the 2nd of February, here in Medium. Our CDO Alessandro answered all the questions submitted by the community beforehand in Discord’s AMA-questions channel. Gaming questions regarding the future of Cryowar’s development are answered below in detail, assuring our remarkable community that we’re working hard on delivering a high-quality fun to play multiplayer game. Enjoy the read and stay tuned on social media for more major future events such as this one!
Q: Welcome, welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, kids of all ages to one of the major Discord Gaming AMA events. Thank you all for tuning in, I am STILLZ, and I’m here today with none other than Cryowar’s Chief Design Officer and one of the masterminds behind it — Alessandro Ciavola. So, how are you, Alessandro?
A: Hi Stillz, everything is good, thank you!!! Here in Italy the weather is nice and we are working hard.
Q: I am glad to hear this, so let’s dive straight into the questions our lovely Discord community has submitted, shall we? A significant issue with PVP arena games is matchmaking and trying to match players of similar skill sets so battles aren’t heavily one-sided. What measures are being taken/created to keep “smurfs” from competing at lower levels to gain a substantial competitive advantage?
A: It is a significant issue for sure. We are huge fans of rocket league, where this is a major problem that still exists after all these years. We are currently implementing a ranking that uses the ELO ranking score system to quickly change the player’s rank after every match that has been completed. To assess the player skill level, we are going to match them against different players of various ranks for a random number of matches until the server decides what’s the correct rank for the new player, this is all done behind the scene and it would be very difficult to track from the player’s perspective. Also, remember that our game is 1v1v1, so even if you are not the best player, you would still have a better chance to take advantage of a specific situation, like the 2 other players fighting over an objective.
Q: Any penalty system for people that join games and AFK (away from keyboard) or rage quit? Obviously, having a coin at stake will help prevent this, but anything else on top of that?
A: It depends on the game mode. If we speak about a casual or ranked match, the player will receive a warning and receive no rewards. However, players in the game will continue to play without issues since we replace the offline player with an AI. If a player quits while playing in a tournament, he will receive a temporary ban from joining other tournaments. More serious penalties will come if we see that the problem getting worse.
Q: Will there be any passive skills, combos, special attacks, etc., which we can look forward to?
A: Passive skills can be activated when the player is switching their characters. I would say the defensive skill and ultimate skills are the most unique and cinematic abilities the player could cast. About Combos, this is a vast topic because we didn’t want to create a scripted system where if the player presses 2 buttons and then another specific button, you activate an ability. Instead, we wanted to create a combat system that is up to the player when using skills and when to switch the character to activate another skill. This system allows much more freedom when playing with 2 characters. For example, suppose I’m playing with Heavy (basically mobile artillery). In that case, I can send rockets to the enemy, then dash forward, switch to Valkyrie, which gets an attack boost when entering the battlefield and slash the enemy, all of this in a fraction of a second, making the 2 characters more than lethal if the enemy isn’t prepared. Of course, more of these combinations can be done with all other characters, which is why we have very short cooldowns.
Q: Will there be a guild system in this game? Ability to play with allies? Will you be able to form Guilds or create Permanent teams in-game?
A: Yes, guilds and befriending players are both planned for future development. These features are being designed, so I don’t have much to comment on. Still, players should expect them ready with the game’s first major update after release.
Q: Are there plans for team matches, or will it always be PvPvP and PvE?
A: We are developing an E-Sport game mode which features teams, more information will be disclosed in the future.
Q: Are there any plans to implement features, such as better targeting, cooldowns, animation cancelling, and crowd control (stun, daze, poison, etc.)?
A: The entire combat system and UI are being completely upgraded and players will be able to test them in the next closed beta.
Q: This may not be the team’s priority right now, but I would like to know your plans to expand the lore of the Cryowar universe.
A: Our writers are working on this. We are expanding the lore of every element of the Cryowar universe, such as the story behind every character, the war between them, and the lands representing a symbol of power. This is going to be developed in the coming months and we will probably post more articles regarding the story.
Q: While playing PvP matches, will there be any buffs or items around the map to keep an eye out for, that will give an advantage if you manage to claim them before the competitors?
A: As I mentioned before, with the new combat system, players can pick up energy to use their skills. This is a massive change from what you’ve seen until now. We are basically replacing most of the cooldowns with a slow energy regeneration that can also be filled with items positioned around the arena. This system forces players to use better positioning while moving inside the arena. Other Items can be found around the arena, and they will be directly connected to the game mode. More item archetypes will be implemented in the future to increase variety.
Q: How will Armor work? Will they just give flat or percentage-based gains to stats, or will certain items also have different abilities, either active or passive?
A: Armours are characters, and they cannot be split or changed. Every character has its’ own attack power, defence power, resistance to rebuff, speed, and skill set. We are keeping everything fixed together to ensure that the game is balanced for tournaments. After finding the correct gameplay balance, we will design new systems, like consumables, to customize the fighting style and upgrade the characters. Small steps are the key to success here. We need to make sure that everything works and it’s up to our quality standards before adding more variables to the combat system.
Q: Is there some in-game chat or ping system to help with teamwork?
A: For now, we are developing emoji and quick answer system to communicate quickly with other players. When we start the development of guilds and friends, we will also think about the implementation of a more complex chat system.
Q: How will the crafting system work?
A: Players will need to collect raw materials of different qualities and rarities to craft new skins. In the future, we will add more raw materials to craft accessories for these skins and aesthetic items for the lands.
Q: How do you plan to balance cross-platform Multiplayer, or Do you think pc will not gain an advantage over mobile users?
A: At this moment, I actually play mainly on my phone. The game is being designed with a mobile main platform where players can enjoy short gaming sessions. But yes, people can take advantage of better hardware for sure, and this has been the topic of long discussions in the core team.
Our Elo raking system will take into consideration the hardware you’re playing on. It will counterbalance the difficulty of making up for a hardware penalty. But players that really want to be competitive should choose the correct hardware.
Q: Are there any plans for a story mode in the game to help with lore, or will there only be arenas?
A: We are focusing on arena fights at the moment, a good e-sport game needs fun polished gameplay mainly. After that we will think on how to expand the content.
Q: Has the team ever discussed game servers? For example, what servers do they plan on haveing when the game is released/in open beta?
A: We have servers ready in every continent, and the scalability is basically instantaneous, allowing us to welcome all players who want to join any moment with low latency.
Q: Would it be possible to do some sort of legendary quests with, let’s say, 3 stages?
A: We are working on many missions with different duration. These missions might have many objectives to complete before getting amazing rewards. Some missions might take a day or even a week to complete, which is basically a journey.
Q: Will there be a respawn “safe” zone or timer for players whose two heroes have died? Will there be, if not a “safe” zone/barrier, a respawn away from the active/alive player? All of this, to prevent spawn-camping, which is exceptionally easy right now.
A: Our spawn zones will have a safe barrier that prevents attacks from going in and out.
Q: Will there be a change to the self-feeding “ultimate” or “special” abilities that currently are powered-up by damage, produced by basic abilities? Currently, Heavy’s Artillery ability can self-feed and you can spam and destroy opponents with relative ease.
A: Ultimates won’t recharge with their own damage. You’ve seen a bug until now.
Q: Will you change it so Artemisia can “blink” through walls, even Citadel’s summoned wall?
A: Artemisia can already blink through walls if you calculate the distance correctly, so no change is required there.
Q: Speaking of my man, Citadel, will you provide a directional the same way all the rest of the ranged attacks have the ability to aim? Instead of instantaneous placement? Maybe a “shadow” version of the wall before releasing the ability.
A: As we already said, the combat system is going through many changes, with a new energy system that fits a lot better to our fast-paced fights. We are also going to have new skills ready, and a new aiming system for every skill archetype. As a result, players should expect a drastic improvement with the next closed beta!
Q: Now, Alessandro would like to say a few words regarding the project.
A: Cryowar was initially created on a whiteboard by the CEO and I in an apartment in London, dreaming of making our own video games. It has been an incredible journey with many difficulties. Still, thanks to the community and all the people who joined our project, we can finally create a great product. So thank you, everyone, and make sure to send us your feedback when testing the game!
Q: Thank you, Alessandro for this exciting AMA, we are looking forward to organizing another one in near future.
As we were really happy with your participation in our event, we decided to reward the top 3 most interesting questions with early whitelist spots for our future NFTs! But in case you have missed the AMA, don’t worry! We came up with a new Discord addition, called CCS, which stands for “Cryowar Community Sessions”. In these, so called small sessions, our lovely admins are going to communicate with you via Discord’s voice channels! Isn’t this exciting? You’ll be able to enjoy a good conversation with a part of our crew, share ideas and suggestions, ask questions and find many new Cryowar friends! Hurry up and jump in our Discord!
And check out below the speacial Arena Resedign Concept sneek peak Alessandro shared to our community in Discord:
