Predecessor Report - July 2023

Welcome back to another exciting edition of the Predecessor Report!

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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. It’s also an important milestone on our journey to console!

So that’s the technical reason, but you might still be wondering what benefits the new UI will bring to you when you boot up Predecessor.

Put simply, the new UI will overhaul the entire Predecessor experience ( well, everything except the gameplay side of things). It impacts which buttons you have to press to travel between the various screens and menus, how items in the shop are displayed, what settings are available to you as a player, and much, much more.

So let’s explore that process a bit more.

Below is an example of an early wireframe design for the new Hero menu (taken from much earlier in the process). The finished screen will probably have a lot less Kiras.

This step is much closer to what we’d expect the finished product to look like, but there’s still a long way to go. Even at this point there will still be a number of changes as we continue the iterative process.

We’re very pleased with the progress we’ve been making and are hoping to roll it out very soon. Once it is released we’ll also sit down with some of the UI team in a dedicated blog which will go into much more detail about the whole process (as we’ve barely scratched the surface here today)!

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:

◆ One of the requirements to submit a game to console is the creation and implementation of a Code of Conduct or, as we’ve called it, a Community Charter.

◆ We’ve completed a number of important branding, key art and asset requests from PlayStation that are required in order to list on their store.

◆ We’ve begun submitting game builds for review by Sony and Microsoft as we start the process of getting Predecessor in front of their various checks and balances.

That last point is particularly exciting, as it’s easily the biggest step towards delivering Predecessor on console.

Keep an eye out for more news and information, including a release date for console, coming soon!

Let’s talk toxicity!

Let’s not beat around the bush. Earlier in the month we unveiled the first step in our journey to tackle this malicious behavior - AI controlled, automated chat muting.

We are confident in the actions taken thus far. All in all we’re confident that the system is operating effectively and comprehensively for the benefit of the wider community.

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

Runway or run away?

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

Most recently you probably saw our TwinBlast key art.

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

Until today. 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. From toxicity to game balance, sales revenue to matchmaking; data is at the heart of everything we do.

Q: Hey Acquazzone! So what exactly does a Principal Data Analyst at Omeda Studios do?

A: Lots of things, but mainly Predecessor has lots of telemetry events, so my job is to make sense of those data points and use them to improve the player gaming experience.

Q: Sounds like a lot! So how important is data to the Omeda Studios team?

A: We like to think of ourselves as data-informed, meaning any decision we make about Predecessor will always try to incorporate data among the information used.

Q: With a dedicated but admittedly small player population, how confident are you with the results you can draw from gameplay data?

A: Oh, we can draw quite a lot! For example, we can get strong inferences about general gameplay, improved understanding of UI flow, and information about marketing audiences.

Q: Sounds technical… and complicated! To some people data might not be the most interesting part of the game design process. What is it that you love about your job?

A: I personally love how often my beliefs are wrong and therefore how often I learn new things.

COMMUNITY ROUND UP

She’s a Kira, queeeeeen…

Two’s Company

Superb Screenshots

Predcasts ft Omeda Studios Staff!

In case you missed it, a lot of the Omeda Studios team have been popping up on the community Predcast!

Prime Championship Circuit 5

For those of you in the dark, the PCC is the premier community tournament series, featuring professional casters and unbelievable gameplay. If you’re at all interested in the Predecessor competitive scene, you should definitely be checking it out!

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!

Until the next time!

~ Kari, Senior Community Manager