Alihsoccer

Will you ever change the look of Ramsgate?

We’re actually currently working on some big changes to Ramsgate. Check the roadmap for more Details

Alihsoccer

What’s you’re favorite in game cell?

Iceborne for sure

Alihsoccer

Was dauntless bought out yesterday or is this a partnership?

Garena purchased the remaining outstanding shares of Phoenix Labs yesterday. Garena has been a great partner for the last 3 years. We absolutely envision this as a partnership, where each group can help support the goals of each other. I think we have a lot to help the Free Fire team with and I believe they have a lot to teach us. For example, we’re almost entirely built around Console and PC development, and have done some great and innovative things there, we can absolutely share that AAA dev knowledge with the Free Fire team. Meanwhile, we have not done a lot of mobile development and very much have a vision of bringing Dauntless to mobile, I can’t wait to learn from them!

goodclass

What will Garena be doing to the game that will clear up things for the stated release of more content?

Currently there is no plan for Garena to work on Dauntless at all. Phoenix Labs will continue to be the developer on Dauntless.

Dahvikiin

Any ETA for client-side detection? or servers outside USA and EU?

It’s currently actively being tested internally! It’s actually live but shut off (because it’s still has bugs we want to resolve)

ShitInUrHandAndClap

Is the water in Ramsgate wet?

Well... I.. Uhh...

NotOverfrostyZ

Why did y’all make it sound like a partnership when y’all were really bought out by Garena? Feels like y’all were purposely trying to misdirect your community.

We went back on Twitter to clarify, as when we drafted the messaging, we didn’t foresee the confusion. Internally we consider this a partnership as it’s not structured as a classic acquisition. Phoenix Labs will remain almost entirely independent, I am still the CEO and Head of Dauntless, we’re keeping our email addresses, and you wont see Garena in any of our branding in general.

nokytn

Are we ever gonna get another city to roam around in?

Maybe! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

ShitInUrHandAndClap

Is the water in Ramsgate wet?

oh... oh no

Ragnaniak

Hi there! Huge step for Dauntless! I'm more than happy to see the game thrive.

Your announce was mentioning "New languages". Could you tell us more about that?

Our localization efforts (along with our awesome translation team) have been focused on English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese. We want to localize the game into Russian and Polish, and in the future to Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, and other languages!

Vozu_

Can you give us a thorough answer on what is the reason for the lack of transparency when it comes to in-game numbers? The most obvious problem is, of course, the drop-rates (of artefacts, bounty tokens, epic components) but the community had to invest a considerable amount of work into understanding and figuring out damage numbers, interactions between bonuses and so on.

What is the reason for this behaviour? I am asking primarily because PHXL has always been doing their best to be a player facing, open and fair company (we see that in many aspects of the game), yet somehow this element of the game remains obfuscated for no good reason (at least in my opinion).

Or is that a shameful admission that the current tooltip and information-disclosure systems just not good enough to dynamically adjust to changes, and as such everything is kept vague to avoid confusing inconsistencies? Because we already have examples of that, like the drop tables on the airship.

Sorry for the long question, but this has been bugging me for a while, and I really think it needs addressing.

Drop rates aren’t something we’re interested in sharing because we change them very regularly, and sometimes via live updates. When you start to broadcast this stuff, folks will often log them on places like the Wiki, forums, and in third party tools. We don’t have the bandwidth to communicate with everyone every time we make these changes (often times several times a week) and so we’ve decided to not share the underlying details, even though we know folks would love to know them.

Alihsoccer

What’s your favorite bethemoth?

Reza for the armour, Shroud for the weapons, Quillshot for the fight.

Sinistrem

Any chance of adding more complexity and depth to existing weapons? In many cases right now you just spam one combo most of the time, with barely any decision making in the process.

Yes, we definitely want to continue to add more to the weapons we currently have as well as introducing more weapons to the game.

General_Fives

Will the New colour System Come soon?

To clarify: what do you mean by colour system?

Drylen

Warpike Rework ?
AirStrike Rework ?
Pet ?
Housing ?
Funny activities in Ramsgate ?
Guild's/Personnal's Farm or House or HUB. (For being more than 4 together) ?

More than 3 of these are a yes ;)

raypembar7

No news about returning servers to the SA region? Should we give up and lose hope?

This is one area I’m super excited to get help from Garena with. They’ve got a great operations team in Brazil who we’re being introduced to over the next few weeks. Ideally, we’re able to work with them to find a solution to bring back game servers into South America.

xanaxphantom

Going forward, how do you think this will impact the current release schedule of Dauntless.

Thanks,
Xanny

Hey Xanny! For the immediate future, not a whole lot. As we grow the team and broaden our focus, I think we’re see more stuff coming. I want to be careful about over promising as this stuff can take time to play out. But we have a vision of expanding to help make moar Dauntless.

/edit autocorrect fail (I’m on my iPad)

KorrupiKid

Can we expect to see more lore in the future? At the current point in time most lore is from outside the game itself and from previous available quests. Being a huge fan of the world and it's inhabitants, I feel like a lot of stuff doesn't get the attention it deserves. Even with all the lore currently available I still find myself asking a lot of questions.

I'd like to see more lore brought up when new behemoths gets announced. A good example was the release of Koshai. It gave a good look into how big a threat Koshai was and its impact on the shattered isles.

Also bring back some of the "lost" lore that was part of the previous questline.

Yeah, absolutely. We always want more lore, both in-game and out! As far as marketing goes, we are working on a plan to incorporate more lore flavour text into our marketing efforts as well (inbox, newsletters, website, social media).

Dahvikiin

Any ETA for client-side detection? or servers outside USA and EU?

Also we have servers outside US and EU already. The only area we’re missing servers today is Africa and South America, and that is due to logistics issues related to getting hosting that fits our needs at a price that makes sense. We ABSOLUTELY will be getting the SA servers back online, it isn’t if it’s when.

gtez

Maybe! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )

goodclass

What will Garena be doing to the game that will clear up things for the stated release of more content?

We are planning to expand our team, which will allow us to create more content on a faster cadence <3

Vozu_

Why would the rates change that often? This sounds excessive from the point of view of a player unless the rates are adjusted dynamically upon releasing a new behemoth/piece of equipment and tinkered with based on progression numbers, then finally stabilised.

But even then, several tweaks a week sound like way more than necessary. Could you explain how can it happen that a rate is changed so aggressively?

This is a fairly normal amount for most non-competitive live service games. Also we don’t release changes in giant batches in terms of balance tweaks, we may see that a level 3 Gnasher sword is doing a little to much part damage and drop it a little bit. Then check a different weapon. There are over 100 folks actively developing against Dauntless every day, that means there’s A LOT of changes that have been made. Over 180,000 changes have been made to the game client alone in the last 4 years. And that doesn’t include the web servers, the platform services, or any of the live data tweaks, etc...

KorrupiKid

Next season as in Aetherpunk or the one after?

Next escalation season there will be a new behemoth! Not tomorrow <3

Dragonpeter86

Will the Nintendo Switch version receive any updates to increase graphics and framerates?

Totally. Our team is constantly working on optimization for all platforms, and will continue to do so.

Fran_19

Where are you hiding Thunderpeep drask?

Drask is a very old behemoth and needs some love. When we have capacity to do a rework on him, we’ll see a very large number of changes on him.

Chuka_Dooka

I understand that the main focus is Dauntless (similar to Riot Games is with League of Legends) so could we see Dauntless expand into other media like graphic novels, figures, spin-off games, animated shorts, etc?

I would really love this. I think we have a great world where many stories can be told. I’m super keen to continue to develop narrative both in game and out.

Tamned

Are there any plans to look at potential pets?

P.S. Will the doggo by Lady Luck's store ever get event costumes? Very important.

1) Pets are something that we are all VERY motivated to have in Dauntless. 2) I would like to also petition for a costume on the turtle

Anime-SniperJay

Any plans to add something of a semi open world aspect? Somewhat like Monster Hunter

There are some great ideas rolling around about how we can further develop the islands. We’ve got some great stuff cooking that I can’t share yet, but it’s gunna blow your socks off.

Rucaodermio

WHEN A PHOENIX BEHEMOTH??? .. i mean...

WE CAN'T ENCOURAGE KILLING PHOENIXES! (But for real, that would be so freakin cool).

bunheadwhat

WE CAN'T ENCOURAGE KILLING PHOENIXES! (But for real, that would be so freakin cool).

There are a number of beliefs about the mythical Phoenix. I subscribe to the one where there can only be one in existence at any given time. So making a Phoenix Behemoth means that we’d kill the One True Birb. This would be bad as I wouldn’t have anywhere to work anymore.

mayoineko77

Monster XXXter is famous action game in South korea. Almost of korean has own gaming PC but resctict on Epic store so cannot playing normal way. Any plans to localizing and release to South Korea?

There’s a number of legal hurdles to supporting Korea’s anti-addiction laws, as we mature as a product more, we’ll definitely get support happening.

FroZ_Shadow

Are we going to be getting a new weapon with this new season?

Nope - It takes a LONG time to get weapons right. It’s Soon(tm) but not super soon. Sorry!

GrizzLeo

/u/gtez Why don't you answer my phone calls any more? Where did I go wrong? 😢

Real talk though this is exciting, it makes me happy to see the success and growth of Phoenix Labs and Dauntless. With this additional support, will the team take on ideas that may have been shelved because of difficulty to implement?

Cause Discord refuses to save my bloody password and I hate using it for that.

And yes, definitely will revisit stuff we’ve not thought about. We recently talked about adding the first thing we cut due to scope in the history of the game. (No spoilers ;) )

JontheNerd

I guess my main concern is either the game being shut down or drastically altered due to a situation where decisions were made to change the game to make as much money as possible and thus becoming unsustainable.

I am really enjoying the game right now (recently got back into it) and can really see it staying around for a long time.

Garena has been an investor for more than 3 years. If they didn’t like how we operated the business, I doubt they would have bought us. If past history can be an indicator of future action, I have a very strong feeling we’re in better shape today than we were last year.

Cpt_Maelstrom

Any plans on "Behind the Scenes" or "Work in Progress" streams? I would like to see how things were made, what was the base idea, balancing and stuff.

Other question, any plans for more competitive mode(s)? Like, a 1vs1 Trial (arena) run or something.

1) We are working on "The Making of X Behemoth" videos for our YouTube as we create them, starting with the Behemoth who is arriving in the next season of escalation.

2) As far as I am aware we are focused on cooperative modes at the moment.

MooseGooseHat

Cool, thanks! I play exclusively on Switch. Great work getting on there :)

One of the reasons we delayed Mobile is to focus on performance on Switch and consoles. We’re a relatively small team for the size of game we operate and so we needed to make a priority call there.

frostyjokerr

Congratulations on the extended partnership everyone at Phoenix Labs!

My question is, are there any guild related things in the works (early stage)? Such as a club house in the new Ramsgate rework, bonuses for slaying with Guildmates, mini-games, etc.

There’s a brand new team that we spun up recently that is focused on new social features such as more guild stuff. Right now they are polishing the friends list. I can’t wait to share more of their vision.

gtez

I would really love this. I think we have a great world where many stories can be told. I’m super keen to continue to develop narrative both in game and out.

DAUNTLESS COMIC WHEN

tehMorag

Any chance on a rework of the queue system to lower the minimum 30 second timer to leave Ramsgate?

We saw the new Reapater Weapon hit the store and came with some varied feedback. How did this experiment go and how will it influence what you see as a "good fit" for the store in the future?

Right now they are seen as Exotics but I feel there could be something bigger ever since the mod system came into play for weapons. What is in the future for new weapon sub types that change up gameplay?

And because I'll keep asking, any chance of bringing back the alpha hammer (was more focused on using the blast and elemental debuffing)? :⁾

Hi /u/tehMorag <3 - I think we’ll revisit the queue system soon-ish as we get to work on some new island experiences.

I think the Twin Suns was a great addition to the store, I’m not sure what the future holds there to be honest.

Hammerbro’s unite (Not sure of the specific answer, but I love Alpha hammers so much too - That’s more dibs’ area and something I should be super careful to comment on)

OppressedGamer01

Will this partnership change Dauntless’ vision much going forward? Will there be more focus on cosmetics or will it stay the same as it is right now?

The acquisition does not change the vision of Dauntless. We are still Phoenix Labs, and we still want to bring our awesome game to as many people as possible. We are excited to focus on quality of life improvements and more game modes - basically we want to double down on making the current Dauntless the best it can be (and more).

I gotta run to some meetings! Thanks so much for the great questions! I’m super excited to keep working on Dauntless for a long time with y’all!

General_Fives

Yes i mean the dye sheens

I have no timeframe for them at the moment - sorry! <3

Nosferatuu777

Maybe someone will teach Drask how to aim too.

Cause when you guys hit him with the nerf hammer, he seems to have forgotten how to do so.

Yeah, we hit him with the Nerf jack hammer. He used to be a triple shot sniper. Maybe one day someone will bring reimplement that encounter for a Trial. Though I doubt folks would love it as 3 people would be dead before they land in the arena.

ocotfungus

On the topic of liking Iceborne, do you feel as though the aim of dauntless has changed since the beta? In the beta/alpha it took 10-15 minutes to fight things, you didn't have potions given to you for free, you didn't have self revives given for free, and you could actually fail hunts. Has that aim, for a difficult game that didn't hold your hand and you actually had to be decent at the game to win fights, gone out the window? I don't want to sound rude, but I want to understand if the "casual" experience becoming the main focus is an accident or the new aim of Dauntless?

Not at all. But I don't think that removing things that were anti-fun means that the game got casual. Building a system that supports forgetting to bring health pots and wasting 10 minutes of a group's time is not good game design.

I think making a game that's fun for groups to play is the focus. Dauntless' vision statement hasn't changed. It’s about being a bad ass playing with your friends slaying behemoths in a science fantasy world.

Over the years, some stuff has gotten easier. Some stuff has gotten harder. Some stuff has gotten too easy because tutorialization is hard and adjusting difficulty can be a good idea. For example I feel (and this isn't a shared opinion throughout the studio) that the path to 'Into the maelstrom' is too fast, and I feel we should increase difficulty and at the same time add a bunch of tutorials to facilitate learning core mechanics better (Dodge roll iframes for example)

The nature of a live game is for us to change stuff and see what happens. As a small team sometimes we won't come back to it for a long time (Drask).