Developer Q&A at China Joy

At the end of July, Conqueror's Blade developers attended China Joy and met with Chinese players to discuss the game’s current issues and our future plans.

First of all, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the players for taking the time out of their loaded event schedules to join this meet-up and provide valuable suggestions for the game that we have also seen echoed by MY.GAMES players. Now, let's review the summary of the meet-up together!

Resolving Crashes And Optimisation

Optimisation is always the lifeline of a live service game, and we have received lots of feedback from players across the world concerning improvements.

Through data monitoring and customer feedback, we have observed that the frequency of crashes and unexpected exits in recent Seasons (namely Eternal and Sengoku) has increased. After internal analysis, we found the main reasons.

Over the past few Seasons, the development team has been continuously improving the game's graphics and performance. As a result, players may notice increased detail in attire textures, skin and hair materials, and special effects compared to when the game first launched.

However, these new features come at a cost, such as higher memory usage, increased CPU calculations, and more complex algorithm logic. When implementing these features, we did not strike the right balance between visual quality and player system requirements. In some new modes, special effects, and attire production, we did not set reasonable asset limitations, causing some players to experience crashes due to insufficient memory or graphics memory after playing the game for a while.

Secondly, some crash issues are caused by corrupted data packets, which often occur after a Steam version update (for players playing via Steam or GeForce Now). As the game content increases, the size of the package also becomes larger, and the probability of this situation occurring also increases.

After analysis, we've found that the majority of the problems players encounter, such as crashes, freezes, or frame drops, are closely related to game performance optimisation. Therefore, we have formed a dedicated optimisation team internally and are planning to solve these issues.

The optimisation plan is divided into the following stages:

Game Asset Optimisation: We will conduct a thorough scan of the game's art assets, optimising excessively used assets such as highly complex effects, high-resolution textures, models without LOD, etc. This can significantly resolve issues like crashes and frame drops caused by insufficient memory on the GPU.
Engine Algorithm Optimisation: We will optimise some algorithms in the engine, such as upgrading the game's memory management mechanism to promptly release unused texture data from the system, thereby reducing the requirements on the graphics card; improving the memory management module, reducing memory fragmentation, and increasing memory usage efficiency; optimising fabric algorithms to lower CPU workload.
Improve Performance Standard Testing Process: We will internally upgrade and refine our performance standard testing process. Before each version is launched, we will conduct a comprehensive performance test for all levels under different hardware configurations, to ensure that the game's performance is within an acceptable range.
Package Size And Compatibility Issues: In addition to performance-related issues, we will also address compatibility and package size problems. On one hand, we will gradually control the package size by placing some less frequently used assets on the server and downloading them when needed. On the other hand, we will optimise the package integrity verification algorithm and process to ensure that players' downloaded packages are not damaged. The team will purchase new mainstream PC hardware every quarter and give it to the testing team for compatibility testing to ensure the game runs smoothly on these devices.

Balancing The Battlefield

With the recent balance adjustments and the addition of systems such as Unit Mastery, we have gradually found a suitable battle rhythm for the battlefield: it's neither Cavalry charges nor Arrow Rain, but rather a focus on ground Advance as the primary pace-setter, allowing various units to have room for performance in the battle rhythm.

Therefore, Unit Mastery and balance adjustments are crucial to gradually stabilise this ecosystem. This Season, we have increased the mastery of many Units in the Melee Infantry group, and these units have become important members of the battlefield due to the new combat mechanics brought by the Mastery system, forming a diverse ecosystem.

Our subsequent plans are as follows:

In the short term, we will not add new five-star Unit Mastery, but rather focus on balancing five-star Units. Our goal is to create a battlefield ecosystem centred on five-star Units, allowing other Units to have playable features and opportunities to enter the battle.

For lower star-level Units, we will gradually unlock their Mastery potential, exploring more possibilities in terms of gameplay experience, allowing for a wider variety of battlefield choices.
We understand that many players may not have much time and are aware of the pressure to accumulate military manuals, unlock Mastery Units, and catch up with others. Therefore, you can also pay attention to the upcoming events, which will offer a lot of rewards. This will help everyone progress faster and make it an important part of finding the right development rhythm for maintaining balance and stability in the battlefield.

Anti-Cheating Measures

Siege matchmaking is one of the core gameplay elements in Conqueror's Blade. We fully understand the negative impact that cheaters have on the battlefield and everyone's overall gaming experience. For some time now, we have been dedicated to combating the endless surge of cheats through various methods such as MY.GAMES Anti-Cheat, which we keep up to date on the latest technology so players can continue to experience a cheat-free experience in collaboration with other versions of the game.

Future Plans For Territory War

Through Territory War, players can forge deep friendships with their comrades while occupying cities in the World Map of Conqueror's Blade. We are delighted to see friendships being made through Territory War, but at the same time, we have noticed many issues that cannot be ignored from the feedback given, and these include:

The game has a high learning curve and complex rules.
The power development cycle in Territory War is long.
The cost of kit and replenishing troops exceeds the revenue.
Accumulation of resources yields no benefits.

Our primary goal is to involve more players in Territory War, and the above-mentioned issues may hinder their enthusiasm for participating. Therefore, these barriers and rewards-related issues are our top priority to address during the optimisation of Territory War.

Next is the participation rhythm in the Territory War itself. During the fief competition, many players can only wait outside to join the frontline, which results in a lack of gaming experience and makes the individual's Territory War experience less interesting. How to make every participant valuable and involved in the war is the second problem we need to solve to improve the overall gaming experience of the Territory War gameplay.

It should be noted that the Territory War is a combination of various gameplay elements, such as the World Map and Siege. Therefore, adjustments to the Territory War require considering many aspects, and the content to be adjusted is extensive. The development cycle will be relatively longer. Although we have a clear plan for the adjustments, it will take some time for them to be officially launched. Meanwhile, we hope that all players can participate and provide more information and ideas.

In addition, we are also considering the possibility of conducting joint research tests for Territory War in the future. After making certain content adjustments, we will invite all players to provide their feedback on the adjustments and work together to make Territory War an enjoyable experience for all players.

The Future of CBL (Conqueror's Blade League)

The CBL has always been an event where Conqueror's Blade developers, publishers, and players can participate together. It's the biggest stage for players to showcase their tactics and represents the highest level of competition in Conqueror's Blade.

We are still reviewing the feedback we received from previous tournaments and our focus is currently on player-created tournaments.

We are not ruling out the CBL completely, but at the moment it's not our primary focus. Recently, we’ve been focused on events such as the Nation Cup and CB Rivals. Any creators and interested players can join our Tournament Server and we encourage you to make more tournaments for everyone to enjoy!

Reward Acquisition and Gameplay Exploration

We have always hoped to bring different gameplay experiences to players through updates in Conqueror's Blade, besides Siege matches, and allow them to earn more rewards and materials during the process. However, after the event modes were launched, players’ feedback on these modes (such as the Banner Conquest event) gradually became negative, with words like "forced" and "imprisoned '' appearing in the comments. These do not align with our original intentions.

In the future, we hope to make some changes that will allow players to freely manage their gaming time while still obtaining enough resources and enjoyment. Firstly, we will adjust the resource production logic in some modes, similar to the well-received "different paths, same destination" mechanism in other games. As long as you invest time in the game, regardless of the mode, you can obtain the materials you want. This way, the freedom to play the game is increased, and you can play the modes you want while still keeping up with the progress.

In terms of gameplay mode updates, we will also seek breakthroughs and try various directions until we eventually settle on some interesting content. However, this does not mean we will force everyone to spend their precious gaming time on content they do not enjoy.

Attire Direction and Acquisition

We do not plan to make Attire in Conqueror's Blade too exaggerated in terms of the sense of the era, in order not to lose the historical charm of a battle-based game. Thus, highly technological and modern Attire like Cyberpunk is unlikely to appear in Conqueror's Blade. As everyone's aesthetic appreciation improves, the demand for more sophisticated fashion design increases. We will take on this challenge and you can look forward to next Season's Battle Pass Attire to see if our design not only meets the historical requirements but also has a more uncommon aesthetic compared to the previous Attires in Conqueror's Blade.

In the future, we may consider continuing to incorporate themes from ancient legends into the game, but these will not give players a sense of being disconnected from the era. We believe that some of the legendary stories and myths from ancient times represent people's expressions of beauty and imagination at that time.

In terms of acquisition, direct purchases, Attire Chests, and Acquisitor Events will continue to be the main ways to obtain Attire.

We want to thank you all for continuously providing valuable feedback. Your enthusiasm far exceeded our expectations, and we apologise for the issues you’ve faced. Let your voice be heard on Discord and we’ll continue working to improve Conqueror’s Blade.