Predecessor Report - July 2023

Welcome back to another exciting edition of the Predecessor Report!

Summary

July has been a busy month here at Omeda HQ, with the team busy putting the finishing touches on our next original Hero, Lizard!

That’s not all though, the UI team are making huge progress on the Predecessor’s visual identity and the brainiacs behind our skill-based matchmaking have been chipping away at a number of big improvements.

Today we’re covering all of this and more - offering you some sneak peeks at upcoming content, never-before-seen development insights, and our usual round up of amazing community content!

Let’s dive right in!

Codename: L I Z A R D

What can we say about Lizard…

Well for one he can’t change colours, he has a reptile dysfunction! Okay that joke was a tad scaly, but we had to snake a few in! Badum-hisss!

Okay seriously though, with V0.10 nearly upon us (we’re currently targeting August 8th), it’s finally time to talk a little more about our next original Hero!

You’ve known them as Lizard for a while now, but today we can reveal their official name!
Drumroll please!

Oh it feels good to finally use that name. Zarus. ZARUS. Z A R U S.

Zarus, known across the lands as The Champion of Nyr, is a melee bruiser with the agility to chase down his foes and the power to make them wish he couldn’t. His abilities combined with his durability encourages fast paced, high-risk high-reward trade-based gameplay that we hope you will love.

Speaking of abilities, here’s a sneak peek at a few of his ability icons!

That’s all we’ll shed on Zarus for now though; you can expect to learn more about this mighty fighter next week!

A match made in heaven!

Earlier this week we released Sr. Operations Manager, JShredz, from his deep, dark, data den to shine a light on what’s been going on with Predecessor matchmaking.

The long and short of it is that true skill-based matchmaking is incredibly hard to do well, and takes a lot of time, data and resources to tune just right.

We’ve made some great improvements recently which have already had a substantial impact on the quality of matchmaking, and we have further plans for some major back-end changes that will make things even better still!

Don’t just take my word for it though, go read our dedicated Matchmaking Improvements blog!

New UI hype!

So we’ve spoken a bunch of times now about how we’re prioritising delivering a new User Interface (UI) over new features right now. As already explained, this is because the UI is a major piece of infrastructure that many other features depend upon, meaning that the longer we put it off the slower and harder it becomes to deliver other new features.

So what does it take to overhaul the UI of an entire game? Research, time and iterations. Lots and lots of iterations.

Here is an example of an early wireframe design for the new Hero menu (taken from much earlier in the process).

The wireframe lets our team fiddle with the layout quickly and once approved, serves as the blueprint for what the finished product will look like. Then it’s mocked up.

While we’re not able to confirm a delivery date right now, we’re very pleased with the progress we’ve been making and are hoping to roll it out very soon.

Console when?

While we don’t currently have a confirmed release date for console, we have recently hit a couple of crucial milestones meaning that we’re closer than ever:

• Creation and implementation of a Community Charter.
• Completed branding, key art, and asset requests from PlayStation necessary for listing.
• Begun submitting game builds for review by Sony and Microsoft.

Let’s talk toxicity!

Earlier in the month we unveiled the first step in our journey to tackle toxic behavior - AI controlled, automated chat muting.

We're pleased to confirm that ( as of the time of writing) we have identified zero incorrectly assigned chat suspensions from the new automated system!

For more information, please read Community Experience Manager Zuzu’s blog post, Tackling Toxicity.

Runway or run away?

Over the recent months we’ve been stepping up the production quality of our marketing assets, and we couldn’t be more pleased with how they’re coming out!

Did you know our TwinBlast key art was inspired by the timeless Call of Duty: Black Ops box art?

Today we're sharing a handful of wonderfully cursed renders that you’ll wish we’d kept to ourselves.

Omeda Asks - Acquazzone

This month we’ve been deep in the trenches, battling all sorts of data.

Q: Hey Acquazzone! So what exactly does a Principal Data Analyst at Omeda Studios do?
A: Lots of things, but mainly making sense of data points and using them to improve the player gaming experience.

Q: How important is data to the Omeda Studios team?
A: We incorporate data into any decision we make about Predecessor, leading to better precision.

Q: What do you love about your job?
A: I enjoy the circle of learning by iteration: belief, negation, new belief, new negation.

COMMUNITY ROUND UP

She’s a Kira, queeeeeen…

Two’s Company

Superb Screenshots

Prime Championship Circuit 5

Following the success of PCC 4, the Prime Championship Circuit is back with a prize pot of $3,500!

For those interested in the Predecessor competitive scene, the PCC is the premier community tournament series.

Sign ups are now closed, but you can watch all the action on the PCC Twitch Channel on August 12th!

That’s about all we have time for this month!

~ Kari, Senior Community Manager

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