Spotlight - How the world of Pax Dei is changing
Hello Paxians!
Last week, we announced the world of Pax Dei is about to be reshaped, with adjustments to its geography, distribution of biomes and resources, and points of interest. The changes are significant enough that they will require a wipe with the upcoming content update.
So this week, let’s take a closer look at what our team of world-builders has been working on lately.
Reshaping the world
Since the start of the Early Access, you have now roamed through every corner of Gallia, and our World team has received a ton of feedback. Here are a few of the things we learned along the way and how it’s helping reshape the world - in the literal sense.
By shielding the home valleys with mountains, we wanted to grant them a sense of coziness. In retrospect, we pushed it a bit too far - they can feel walled in at times. So, we’re adjusting the new terrain to have a more open and natural feel, encouraging exploration and travel.
Many cliffs are now less steep, making mountain climbing slightly less lethal, and we added more mountain passes to make moving from one area to another easier. On the lethal side of things, we also changed the fall damage system to make it more predictable.
We’re lowering some of the mountain ranges, which, combined with the other changes, opens up some impressive vistas.
We’re adding details to make a few valleys more unique. For example, Nones in Inis Gallia now has an aqueduct spanning a river.
Here and there in the Heartlands, we’re reworking rock formations to make them more suitable for building. We noticed that a lot of the cool castles were placed in such areas, and we’re trying to encourage that.
Lastly, we're enhancing the roads. You'll now see more variety, from simple dirt paths to the paved ‘king’s roads,’ and we've increased their number to provide more routes across the land. This will also help reduce the chances of areas being blocked off by a few plots.
As an example, in Lavedan, a path from the home valley to the wildlands was easy to block. Now it looks like that:
Soon, it will look like this:
Landscape art
The new map of Gallia brings an opportunity to enhance how our biomes function, aiming to improve overall progression while making the Wildlands and Heartlands more distinct.
The Heartlands now feature a more limited range of three base biomes, along with two advanced biomes. While the base biomes remain consistent across the Heartlands, the advanced biomes will vary between different Heartlands.
In the Wildlands, we’re introducing a new biome: the Corrupted Plains. This land is tainted by demonic forces, where you are more likely to encounter the Cult of Zeb.
We’re also rolling out several updates to give each biome more character:
Ancient trees will now populate enchanted forests like the Whispering Woods.
Strange growths will be found in demonic biomes such as the Corrupted Plains.
The trees in the Eerie Pine biome are getting a fresh, new look.
Music will adapt based on the biome and time of day, further enhancing immersion.
As you might have noticed from these examples, we’ve also renamed some biomes to give them more distinctive identities that better reflect their inhabitants. Rest assured, however, the names of the Provinces and home valleys remain unchanged.
New PvE Progression
One major focus for us in the upcoming patch is to allow players to find adventures earlier in the game. As such, the most important changes we’re making are to the positions of PvE encounters.
We are introducing numerous enemy camps throughout the provinces. Several camps in the home valleys are designed for solo or duo play, making them ideal for early progression. These camps are tied to specific biomes and grouped in clusters of five to seven small encounters. Some biomes will have many sites, while others will have few or none.
We've also added some entry-level cave dungeons in the home valleys. Additionally, we are rebalancing the distribution of enemies to ensure it aligns with their respective biomes and creates a more logical progression. High-tier enemies will primarily be found in high-tier biomes. In other words, the Cult of Zeb won’t have much presence in the home valleys.
The Inquisition faction is getting a complete revamp with a new look – still a work in progress – along with new camps and strongholds. Although the Inquisitor Citadels aren’t ready yet, they will serve as mid-tier dungeons in the future.
The Lost Souls, our ghostly enemies, are being progressively redesigned and will now only appear in haunted biomes – both in the Wildlands and select home valleys.
The map has been updated with new icons indicating which factions control enemy camps and ruins, and new icons for customized marks have been added.
Overall, these changes aim to create a more natural PvE experience with a clear progression that rewards exploration.
We have more in store for you, but we also want you to discover some of the new content for yourselves. We should be able to provide a date for the patch in the coming days, so stay tuned!
Pax vobiscum, The Mainframe Team