Echo VR Dev Log | January 27, 2022
Happy New Year Echo Units!
RAD_Tyrana here to give you an updated on all things Echo VR. We know it’s been a while since we’ve provided the community with an update, so let’s shine some light on some of the new things we’ve been hard at work on.
Before we dive into that, lets first talk about last year and how we’ve shifted our focus on the project. 2021 was a big change for how we develop and release content. We added 4 seasons of the Echo Pass, re-worked our customization systems, released the Echo Shop, adjusted the self-goaling rules, added VoiP auto leveling and tackled a lot of community reported issues to help increase the stability of the game. That’s a pretty big list of things and we’re excited for what’s coming up next!
Looking back at our first year gives us plenty of options for how we’re planning to move forward, so lets take a dive into what’s coming up.
Echo Pass, Customization, & Shop
Echo Pass Seasons
We’ll continue to add new Echo Pass seasons throughout the year and we’re already hard at work creating the new content going into them. We started leaning more into specific themes in the season to help create more of a solid identity for each release of rewards.
Here’s where we are currently headed for Seasons 5, 6, and 7.
· Season 5 — Road Warrior
· Season 6 — Under the Sea
· Season 7 — Gothic Horror
Of course, all of these themes are subject to change, but all of them are headed in an exciting direction and will maintain the unique flavor that we always bring to our Chassis. Here’s a preview of the Legendary Chassis for Season 5.
**This is a concept and the final asset is subject to change.
Expanding on the Echo Pass
One thing we’ve really wanted to do is expand the options available to our players and add new rewards to the Echo Pass. So we’re currently investigating adding more tiers to the Echo Pass and brand new categories of customization items.
While we can’t go into details now, we’ve just started prototyping these rewards and we can’t wait to see what our community thinks! We don’t want to just replace rewards on the pass, so to ensure our players get the previous amount of content plus the new rewards, expect to see the Echo Pass grow to support these. These additions also wouldn’t have any change on the current price of the pass.
Customization Adjustments
With our Echo Pass release last year, we radically adjusted how players customize their Echo Units. We know we had a bit of a rocky start and took some risks, but we listened to everyone’s feedback and have taken it to heart. Moving forward, we’re aiming to open more options for our players as to how they can add even more expression and identity but adjusting the rules for how players customize their loadouts.
Expect to see more on this soon where we’ll dive into a more detailed blog post of the changes.
Echo Shop
The Echo Shop was another massive undertaking for our team to provide even more options for expression for our players. We were able to release the new Jack Frost bundle and a variety of new thematic bracers, boosters, and heraldry items.
We’ll be aiming to release a new bundle alongside Season 5, and with this bundle we’ll be adjusting what options players have to purchase it. In our last bundle, we launched with what we called a “Fixed” bundle. This was a single purchase for a Chassis, Bracer, and Booster. With our next bundle release, we’ll be adding a new option for players to purchase the bundle as a whole for a discounted price, or purchase individual parts for their full price.
As we also expand the Echo Pass, expect to see new customization types added to the Echo Shop as well.
We have a lot more bundles and content in development so we can’t wait to show you some of the unique designs. We’ve been listening to what themes players want to see in game, and your ideas have helped guide us in making these new items.
Social Systems and Features
Social is a major pillar of Echo VR, so we have a group specifically dedicated towards handling the complexity of social issues and systems that we need to ensure a stable and healthy community and experience. I’m going to hand this section over to our Senior Systems Designer RAD_igoronchains so he can dive into some more detail on our upcoming social features.
RAD_igoronchains: There are of course a huge number of Social features we want to focus on for Echo VR. Our highest priority is always keeping players safe while giving them the tools they need to play together, meet new people, and have fun. The following features all address these goals in different ways, whether they target toxicity, getting together in-match, or experience customization.
Deep Linking
Deep Linking is a new feature-set we are working on that does two things — it allows players to invite each other using a 5-digit code, regardless of whether they are Meta Friends, and it allows players to create and share invites that target or create new Private Lobbies, Echo Arena Matches, and Echo Combat matches. Players can password protect their invites, choose regions, and set invite expiration timers. Overall, this system is designed to let players quickly invite anyone they choose to a customized new destination of their choosing. As a bonus, we’re also updating the layout and appearance of the Main and Pause Menus, and adding a button to the Menus that allows the player to quickly open a list of Oculus players to invite to Echo VR.
Early Quit and Leaver Penalties
Another area we want to focus on is Early Quits. To that end we’re creating Early Quit detection, warning, and penalization systems. It will track all types of Early Quits, notify players when they Quit and inform them of potential penalties, and will lock players out of matchmaking if they quit multiple games in a time window. At first the Timeout will be for a brief period, but the more players quit over time, the lengthier the Timeouts will become. Players can be “forgiven” for their Early Quits — and reset their default Timeout times — by simply not Early Quitting for a period of time, causing the system to reset for that player. Of course, if they begin to consistently Early Quit games again, they will experience the same Timeouts and ramp-up of Timeout times.
Reporting
We are currently investigating improving the reporting feature for Echo VR. While we don’t have a current timeline for this, we want to ensure players have the proper tools to easily report toxicity, harassment, and major community issues. Expect more detailed information on this in future updates.
Servers
Currently we’re internally building framework to better test different situations prior to release.
Closing thoughts
Thanks RAD_igoronchains and to everyone who has helped make Echo VR as we know it today. This isn’t only a developer driven game, but a community one as well. Your feedback throughout the year helps guide us and shape our roadmap. We’re always excited to hear your thoughts, so keep them coming and we can’t wait to show you what’s next!
— Echo VR Dev Team
