General Update #30

Hey there agents!

This will be a shorter post than usual. We're still working on completing Silent Echo's next update.

We didn't make as much progress on the next update as we hoped we would. We've been busy making changes to the game's code in order to support some new functionalities we need and make some existing features more flexible, but as one could expect, making sweeping changes to the code tends to generate bugs.

We're almost done fixing all of the bugs, but the time spent on that is time we didn't spend implementing the new content. The new objective is to release early access next week instead of this week.

Improving the squad system

Silent Echo has been a great way to experiment with systems we didn't have in Starwatch, and the feedback we have received on features like the squad system and its impact in combat has been invaluable.

Ever since we added Sylvia and Victoria as squad members, you've been a few to report that combat turns were starting to be very long. The fast combat system has been added to compensate for this, but as we prepare to welcome 2 new squad members in chapter 3, it really feels like there is need to give you more control over the squad.

6 active squad members is a lot and while some players will love that kind of harem style big squad, it also causes the enemy scaling to be a lot more aggressive, which may not be desirable by other players. We also don't want to take away the ability to have this kind of big squad and add some artificial limit such as a maximum of 3 or 4 squad members at a time.

The potential solution we've found to this problem is to add a button on the squad page where you can switch a squad member between active and inactive modes. Active will allow them to participate in combat, while inactive will leave them out of combat but let them participate in squad banter, events and other squad unique interactions that exist.

This way, you could perfectly have all 6 squad members with you, but have like only 2 of them be active participants in combat, or have all 6 be active for a specific combat.

We'd love to hear your thoughts about this!

That's it for this week!
Have fun!