It's that time again, the CCMs of the DOFUS communities have read the forums and gathered up another list of player inquiries from each community. This month, when we each looked at our lists, we noticed most of the communities had very similiar concerns at this point in DOFUS's development. Rather than putting in multiple copies of the questions everyone was interested in, we created several "Uber Questions" from the most repeated themes: PVP, Class Balancing, 2.0, and Frigost. Then, we sent them off to Lichen, the Head Game Designer of DOFUS for answers!

Without further ado, let's get to the information!

Why is the transfer of 1.29 servers to version 2.0 taking so long?

Simply because we aren’t ready yet. Version 2.0 has not yet reached a level of quality and functionality sufficient for us to migrate the old game servers without it being seen as a step backwards.
 We have identified 4 main points which have prevented us launching the migration:

The performance of the client is not good enough to ensure that all DOFUS 1.29 players can continue to play DOFUS 2.0 at the best speed their computer allows. We are focussing a lot of effort on optimising the client to reduce memory consumption but also the amount of CPU resources necessary for a smooth game. We are taking a two-pronged approach to addressing the memory consumption: correcting memory leaks and optimising the base memory usage.

The correction of memory leaks is almost fully complete; it is possible to play for several hours without the client's memory usage increasing significantly. Optimising the client’s base memory usage continues: we are continually conducting new phases of research and development to test new solutions to reduce memory consumption.

Client performance optimisation will not end with the migration of the servers to version 2.0. We have plans to optimise in both the short and long terms, based on, among other things, the use of future versions of Adobe Air, for example. The client developers will take time over the coming months to explain their work and optimisation projects in more detail. Our goal is always to get as close as possible to the level of performance of version 1.29 and if possible to offer a client that is even faster. To achieve these results, we intend to improve the overall performance of the game but also offer more options to adjust the display quality.

The game is not yet bug-free enough to ensure greater operating stability than on version 1.29. Since the launch of version 2.0 on new game servers, we have been correcting bugs reported to Support. The number of major bugs is steadily decreasing, although we know that we will have to remain very vigilant, some bugs have not yet been reported by players, or are very difficult to reproduce or not yet detected. To improve the handling of bug reporting we're working on setting up a system report log.

The "look and feel" of combat is not as good as (or is too different from) that of version 1.29. Target selection was originally difficult, movement and actions less intuitive. We have already greatly improved combat smoothness to some extent, but we are still trying to do better. After the game servers have been fully migrated, we will continue to improve the execution speed of spells. We have undertaken a very long and detailed process which requires a case-by-case basis for all class spells and the establishment of new standards and restrictions for their creation.

Menu usability and readability: text was too difficult to read on small screens (on netbooks, among others), and some menus were not very easy to navigate. We are working on a new version of menus, which will be cleaner and use a font size that is identical to that used in DOFUS 1.29. In combat, the target’s contextual information hid part of the playing area, and we are currently working on a new version of this interface whose operation is closer to that used in version 1.29. We are also working on improving the layout of information in tooltips and a new interface theme that incorporates the colour codes from version 1.29.

We need to move forward on these four issues before starting the migration from the old game servers

After so much focus on 1vs1 PvP, will group PvP be given some attention/rewards?

We have studied and considered other forms of PvP or other ways of upgrading the current methods of group PvP that are no longer used, but we haven’t yet found any changes that are viable or attractive. We considered developing a group PvP tracking system, but it quickly proved too complex or time consuming. We have no short-term projects to upgrade group PvP.
We are aware of the game’s shortcomings but also its potential. We do intend to improve this aspect of the game, but for now we are concentrating on Frigost’s PvM content.

How do you plan to regulate the imbalance caused by the tracking system?  Are there any plans to improve the PvP experience for new/casual PvPers?

These imbalances are often greatly exaggerated. According to our statistics, very few people actually succeed in earning more than 100 Strokens in one week of play. However, we are aware of the imbalances that exist, that some classes benefit more than others from this game system, and that the rewards available for low level characters are generally too large. We therefore intend to regulate the amount of Strokens earned by characters according to their level. This change implies a change in the Stroken cost for rewards, and the addition of a dedicated system for the exchange of Strokens for rewards. We have not yet determined when these changes will be developed.

What further character balancing is planned? Will Fecas be improved? Will Cras still be OP? What about Iops?

We will focus mainly on balancing Cras, who have many imbalances at low-level and in PvM at all levels.  We have to balance the effectiveness of Fire Iops and increase the effectiveness of Fecas in PVP.  We also want to review the management of summons which makes Osamodas too effective at certain levels but mainly makes combat far too tedious.

We expect long-term balancing on all classes, as almost all classes have lots of little-used spells or spells that don’t work well together.  In addition, we intend to improve many game systems, such as dodging and dodge-locking, punishments, the management of range, unbewitching or critical hits. We want to make fighting more predictable, enhancing the tactical aspect of the game by offering players more choices in battle.

We will, however, address the majority of these changes after the Frigost expansion is completed, although it is possible that some of these changes will be included with the Frigost expansion.

How do you manage to work simultaneously on improving DOFUS 2.0 and the design of the Frigost extension? Are there two different teams?

The DOFUS production team is divided into 4 main sectors: client development, server development, game and level design, and graphics. 
During the development of DOFUS 2.0, we focused our strengths and our staff on this project.
 The Frigost expansion is based mainly onnew content (new zones, monsters, dungeons, quests, items etc.). This is what the game and level design and graphics teams are in charge of.
The server and client development teams focus in turn on optimising game performance and improved stability. They gradually join the teams working on Frigost to bring new features to the game or improve existing functionality, without abandoning the permanent tasks of optimising and stabilising the game.
The teams that complete the production of the game (testing, tools development and localisation) work on the whole DOFUS 2.0 project.

Are there any plans to further strengthen the game’s accessibility - speeding up low level progression, for example - so that all players can more quickly enjoy the entire content of the game?

We believe gaining access to high-level content still takes too long for beginners who only play one account. We believe that the methods of leveling a character are not sufficiently diverse and risks taken by players are not suitably rewarded. We would like to continue to reward the practice of different activities in-game, as well as risk taking. The experiment we attempted with the challenge system showed that we should continue to include this type of incentive: trying to offer more self-imposed challenges to make things more interesting, while handsomely rewarding those who accept such challenges.

We know that a vocal part of the community resents the direction that the game is taking, which in their eyes makes it “too easy”.  But we do not share this view. We want to distinguish between "challenge" and "frustration".  In DOFUS, almost all problems related to PVM can be circumvented by using a team of characters far more powerful than what the challenge offered might require.  The difficulty of the game depends largely on constraints and objectives that bind the players, but not the rate of progression of the characters. They are two completely different things.  We intend to respond to these two problems with two solutions, offering new challenges for players (more dungeons and rewarding risk-taking) and facilitating access to these challenges and game content.

How are you going to create new sets and objects for Frigost that can compete with the objects that are most used at the moment without giving them excessive bonuses?

We plan to create new item bonuses with the Frigost expansion that allow players to more effectively specialise their characters and thus create builds that are both more specific and more varied. For example, we expect to add bonuses dedicated to dodging MP loss, bonuses to dodging AP loss, bonuses to the effectiveness of MP or AP loss etc. The high-level objects will continue to include many bonuses, but may not cover all the bonuses in the game as easily. Currently, very high level items tend to provide great versatility to characters, which is something very interesting, but now we want to make new high-level equipment with more specific purposes to enhance the diversity of character roles and the choice of equipment for players.

Many players complain about the lack of role-play dimension to DOFUS. Will the arrival of Frigost make a difference?

We work closely with Ankama’s Background team (who manage the background of all Ankama media; comics, Wakfu the animated series, and the video games). We are very anxious for this expansion to provide a world that is consistent with the background and we are trying to improve the content of our narrative, offering an active narrative (via quests and books for example), but also a more "passive" narrative (through what the scenery can express, for example). With this expansion we’re trying to extend this by offering a participatory narrative in that way that we let the players choose to interpret the elements of the proposed background. We aren’t planning to offer quests with multiple choices or the possibility of changing the expansion’s story, but we try to involve players by allowing them to compose their own story about what has happened and what is happening on this island. 
We know that many players will see no noticeable difference compared to our previous expansions, but we wanted to invest more time on this aspect of the game. We will closely monitor the community’s comments about this change in direction.

It has been a long time since there was any progress with the Mercenary Alignment, and the current system is not satisfactory. Is a thorough overhaul of its operation and integration in-game planned?

We have nothing planned at the moment. We have not decided if we are going to integrate a Mercenary system directly in the mechanics of the game and on all servers. The main interest (and principal weakness) of the Mercenary system was its direct management by the players. A simple implementation of a new Mercenary system managed solely by the game (like the other two alignments) would not necessarily be as interesting.

Since the survey about the potential opening of a dedicated “monoaccount” (single account only) server, its supporters are still waiting for more news. What’s the latest?

We conducted that survey to get an estimate of the number of players who might be interested, not to determine a release date for such a server. The idea has not been abandoned, but we do not plan to open such a server for the time being. We would have to perform specific development that we feel is lower priority than that related to DOFUS 2.0.

Will Kwismas Island make its grand return in 2010? Will there be anything new?

We expect to reopen Kwismas Island at the end of 2010 on DOFUS 2.0. However, we will not be including anything new. We believe that event content is lower priority than standard content, and so our priority remains improving version 2.0 and Frigost.

That's it for now, was it an interesting read? We'll have another of these interviews in March, if your question wasn't addressed this time, you'll get a second chance soon! Thanks for tuning in, and thanks to Lichen for agreeing to the interview and providing these answers. Bye for now!