Legacy: Steel & Sorcery Dev Assures It Will Be A Next-Gen MMO With PvE Modes

Chris: The community is super important to us during Early Access for two reasons. The first is to hear their raw feedback to understand if our assumptions are correct. For example, if we think some spell or ability will be fun and the community does not like it, that is super interesting and something that we will make changes to address. Secondly, the community and player base (even in a smaller “soft launch” like EA) lets us play with the players to playtest the game ourselves. The team at Notorious plays a lot, and we know so much about the community’s concerns or requests because we have the same feelings and instincts when playing the game with them.

As for movement and combat fluidity, it’s the one area of the game we’ve spent the most time on, which devs call the “three Cs” (combat, control, character). So far, in EA, our combat is one of the highlights that players love about the game. That said, I would say Legacy isn’t a game for everyone – it isn’t like most MMO combat that has tab targeting, full player control, anim cancelling,g etc. It’s more similar to a fighting game, Dark Souls etc. That is a design direction that is more or less set in stone, but there are some players who wish Legacy could be something different.

Chris: Our biggest focuses right now are on accessibility and engagement. For accessibility, we’ve heard from a number of players that they initially refunded the game but then, for some reason, bought it again to give it a second chance, and when they did, they are now hooked. The question there is, why did they refund the first time, and what can we do to smooth out that process so that they ease into the game? This can be brutal since it is quite hardcore. Secondly, our next focus is on engagement, which ultimately just comes down to adding more content. We have a lot of new content planned for late spring, which includes a new class, the Wizard and a new Dungeon style map. Also included in that patch are more progression content, systems to craft blues and epics, etc.

Chris: It’s interesting because seasonal wipes, or “resets” as you describe them, at first blush sound like it will make a lot of players unhappy because their progression is being reset. But in practice, wiping progression in a primarily PvP game like Legacy lets the players come back to the game on an even playing field. It also rejuvenates the economy, which can stagnate as the season goes on.

You notice this as well in mainstay MMOs where Gold or whatever main currency begins to lose its value, new players are so disadvantaged vs the ones who have been playing for months or years even, and the player base has churned so it doesn’t feel as alive. The game I worked on before Legacy at Notorious was World of Warcraft, and some of their most popular experiences right now are Classic and Seasonal servers that reset for these reasons.

We haven’t done a seasonal reset yet (our first will be in May), but we will be monitoring how this will affect the game and make changes where necessary. As time goes on, we will also be adding persistent progression (like achievements, titles, and cosmetics) that carry over from season to season resets.

Chris: We have nothing to announce yet on having SBMM or a ranked mode, but it is something I had worked on a lot in my career back at Blizzard (on ranked Arena balancing and gameplay tuning). It is an experience that I personally love, so I would see us growing into that mode and gameplay experience more in the future.

Chris: We haven’t talked a lot about a price increase after the EA release just yet, so we have no plans there. However, we do want to add more value to the game and to the other offerings we have right now (Founder Edition and God Tier Edition) as time goes on for our Early Access community.

Chris: For every class we add to Legacy, we first look at every other game and see what they did with those classes and how we can innovate while keeping the experience familiar. Some of our design goals are to make the class feel as immersive as possible and to really drive home the fantasy of that class. For the Wizard, we really want to make him feel like he combines his main elements of Fire, Frost and Lightning as a sort of “chemistry” system where combining them in different ways has different outcomes.

We’ve seen this gameplay in games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild, for example. It’s something we’re going to be fleshing out on the Wizard over time. As for the Paladin, we’ve reserved a lot of “buffing” spells and mechanics for him, which will be core to his gameplay and something Paladin players have come to expect. There is also a high chance he’ll be welding a Greathammer, which I’m super excited about! I also love the idea for the Paladin that he can somehow know if enemy players have been assassinating others in unjust ways and can redeem those players in some way. I’ve been calling this “Sense Injustice.”

Chris: In Legacy, we have a core progression feature called “The Lodge.” The Lodge is a series of different features we call “furnishings,” like the Bed that grants a rested experience or the Storage Chest that increases the number of Stash Tabs you have. The Guild Hall is intended to be similar to this, but a community “lodge” of sorts. So you may have the Fishing Pond or Herb Garden that you maintain with others in your guild, and level up together. It’s still a bit too early to talk about the Guild Hall, but it is one of my most anticipated features.

Chris: Right now the game has very limited character customization in terms of cosmetics, but we have a lot of plans on how to expand these in the future. Many of them are what you’d expect, like hair and face options. But we also want to make some class specific, like maybe Warriors can customize their War Horns or Hunters their Quiver look. We’re always thinking from the lens of class fantasy.

Chris: I came from a game that had a huge mod culture (World of Warcraft), so it is something we talk about from time to time. I think, in the long term, it is something we’d be interested in supporting, but in the short term, there are just too many practical features and systems to add to Legacy first.

Chris: As someone who is slightly color blind (red/green), making the game accessible to those with disabilities is something always on my mind. As we move through Early Access I would expect to see a number of new features and settings to make the game more accessible to those with disabilities – and we’re always interested to hear from the community which of these are the most sought after.

Chris: That is something I had never considered! I’d have to think about that, but we don’t have anything planned right now.

Chris: I would just like to add that we really love how engaged and supportive our community is and want to give them a shoutout! Legacy is a game that has ambitious short-term, long-term and very long-term plans, including adding PvE modes and even becoming a next-gen MMO. Notorious is here long-term with this IP and appreciates our Early Access players helping us build and shape this game for success.